Flint
Posts: 478
Joined: Jan. 2006
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Spike:
| Quote | | I'm really trying to understand how pro-abortion folks on this thread decide where to draw the line between person and non-person. |
I'm not sure exactly what you're asking. Personally, it's simple. Not born, not a person. Born, legal person. Simple.
But as I wrote earlier on this thread, this policy has plenty of exceptions. Enemy soldiers are "inconveniences" in wartime. Kill them, you're a military hero. Someone threatening your life is inconvenient as well; they're fair game.
As for abortion, laws against it are much like prohibition: so difficult to enforce as to make enforcement capricious and highly unfair. Easy for the rich, hard for the poor. Such laws don't prevent abortions, they only increase the incidence of incompetent abortions.
| Quote | | There are plenty of people walking around right now that are a burden on "society." |
Depending on how burdensome they are, they can be imprisoned indefinitely or (in many places) executed.
Anway, we as a society must balance out many factors: the degree of burden, the definition of personhood, the social and financial costs, the political ideals and how they are to be applied: Should abortion be mandatory (as in some places), prohibited (as in other places), or up to the individual (where Big Brother allows personal freedom)? Associated with this is the question of reciprocation: if you are willing to meddle in the lives of others, would you accept their meddling in YOUR life to the same degree? Like FORCING you to abort, whether you wanted to or not, because THEY decided it was for your own good?
And to some degree, depending on your preferences, there's the technological issue of when viability starts, and whether that point is meaningful, morally speaking. Again, this question becomes significant only for those with enough money (or insurance) to make a difference.
Not a simple yes/no issue, but rather an issue where many people take many different positions for many different reasons. Which leads to the most important question of all:
Who are you to dictate my life, and who am I to dictate yours?
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