I'm not saying changing cultural biases is easy. I'm just saying that this is the foundation for all that follows.
Joanna
----- Original Message -----
On Feb 27, 2012, at 2:38 PM, 123hop at comcast.net wrote:
> I think there are two basic options with abortions:
>
> 1. Illegal except to save the mother's life or in the case of rape.
>
> 2. Legal under all circumstances except when the foetus is viable outside the mother's womb.
>
> In case 2, if a woman wants an abortion at seven++ months, you induce or do a C section and have the state care for the baby...adoption…etc.
>
But wherefrom the seven++? (++, eh? :-)). Foetuses are viable these days as early as the 18th week, no?
> If case 1, it then follows that there would be no death penalty and no waging war. That is, option 1 is only acceptable if there is a blanket social commitment to the "sanctity of life."
>
> I personally favor #2 not because it's philosophically pristine, but because it is better than all other alternatives.
>
> Case #2 would include sex-selection-based abortions by definition. To change that situation you do not change the legality of the abortion, but cultural views about the status of men/women. If parents are mad keen on having gender-balanced families, well, that's that.
But that’s not that, yes? Girls, now a scarce "commodity", are getting kidnapped and shared by gangs of men where such sex-selection has prevailed. Those that survive, paradoxically, continue to carry the burden of their unwantedness. It might all flip around at some point of imbalance, but what of the cost we pay in the meantime? How does one change the cultural views about the status of men/women?
—ravi
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