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While my position on abortion is much closer to that of Ross Douthat than that of Julian Sanchez, I nonetheless found the latter’s argument on the “abortion equals eugenics” argument more persuasive. The key line in a very fine essay, to me at least, is, ” If we all agree abortion is murder, then whether it has any eugenic aspects is almost ludicrously beside the point.”
Quite.
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Abortion is not murder. Abortion is not even against the law.
A fair point, if a technical one. Many people believe a fetus is a human being and that intentionally killing it therefore should be treated like any other murder. Oddly, though, there are many who believe abortion is homicide and yet want lesser punishments, or punishment only for the abortionist or whatever.
Abortion is not murder.
Murder is a moral issue, you can’t really make this absolute statement. You can make points for why you believe it isn’t murder, but you can’t say that it with absolute certainty.
Abortion is not even against the law.
What is or isn’t permissible under the law doesn’t mean much either. You can say abortion isn’t criminal, because the law doesn’t prohibit it, but you can’t take a moral position that it isn’t wrong.
That is like arguing that slavery wasn’t morally wrong in 1850, because it wasn’t prohibited by the law.
Abortion may or may not be a sin. It depends on which religion one follows. But abortion is never murder.
If you kill an innocent, and in this case helpless human being for convenience or consensus or a law that a couple of idiot liberals have forced on all of the rest of us, it is murder of the worst kind and if you don’t believe that a fetus is a human being you are the the biggest and worst part of the problem.
It is one of the more saddening things to know that so many people think like you do.
Murder is a moral issue, you can’t really make this absolute statement. You can make points for why you believe it isn’t murder, but you can’t say that it with absolute certainty.
Yes you can and here is why. According to Webster
Murder 1 : the crime of unlawfully killing a person especially with malice aforethought
Therefor abortion is not murder. You may think it should be, but it is not. I can say that with absolute certainty.
or a law that a couple of idiot liberals have forced on all of the rest of us
The latest poll I have seen shows that 57% of Americans believe that abortion should be legal in all or most cases. In that same poll 14% said it should be illegal in all cases. That is far from a few liberals forcing it down the throats of the rest. You are in a quite small minority, while you claim your position is the one in the mainstream. You have your religious reasons for holding your position, but not even 3/4 of your evangelical co-religionists hold to your position. You may find it sad, but that is the truth.
Life would be better if those who say abortion is not murder were miscarried or stillborn.
Shorter, I wish everyone who disagreed with me did not exist.
Tim,
Do you feel that bombing abortion clinics is justified?
1) I did not argue that position, but will respond anyway. I haven’t seen any polling on abortion that breaks down results by religious belief, however the people who are visibly pushing for restrictions on abortion are almost uniformly religious and it would be quite difficult to argue for the humanity of a ball of cells if one did not believe in something beyond the physical. So, my ill supported guess is that most atheists are indeed pro-choice. Every atheist I know is pro-choice. How about you?
2) No position is necessarily with or without value due to having a religious source, but there should be more than a religious argument for public policy that effects us all. Your religion should not preempt my freedom.
If you have an argument against a woman’s right to choose that does not involve religion I would like to hear it.
3) Polls are far from perfect but represent the most effective tool we have to judge the opinions of large groups of people. How else do you propose we gauge public opinion?
4) In a democracy what is legal and what is illegal are subject to majority opinion, though in our system some opinions require a larger majority.
I did not argue that the pro-choice position was correct because the majority of people subscribe to that position. I pointed out that GA’s position that the pro-choice position was being foisted on a majority who do not agree with it is false.
