On Fri, 12 Dec 2008 20:08:47 -0800 (PST) andie nachgeborenen
<andie_nachgeborenen at yahoo.com> writes:
>
> Yes, there are ways to defend the legality of abortion if fetuses
> are regarded as people or the moral equivalent of persons, but it's
> hard. Jim has to go out to analogize a fetus to a mad attacker, and
> that is only in the limited case of abortion that would endanger the
> life of a woman. (A lot of right wingers would make that exception
> even now.) A general defense, by which I mean the sort of right to
> an abortion the left should defend, absolute and unqualified, is a
> lot more difficult.
Since that is an argument that many rightwingers would accept, I think it might be a good place to start when discussing abortion rights with them. It doesn't really take that much to extend the argument to ecompass the defense of abortion rights in other situations too. I doubt that a general defense of abortion rights would make much headway with rightwingers, but once you start getting them to concede that abortion is defensible under this circumstance and that circumstance, it turns out to be much harder for them to draw lines where abortion rights would stop, since one they start making concessions, it is hard to stop.
Jim F. ____________________________________________________________ Compete with the big boys. Click here to find products to benefit your business. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL2141/fc/PnY6rw2USkl68LSW8dOaJzs1DWTnzy3EXPA3a58DftO2UY2dxvnvv/