ext_336679 ([identity profile] rifmeister.livejournal.com) wrote in [personal profile] kirisutogomen 2011-09-28 01:36 pm (UTC)

I think maybe we agree. I wasn't fully awake either.

Thinking about it more [livejournal.com profile] kirisutogomen has implied [while not quite setting up] a false dichotomy. I think unborn fetuses have more moral standings than lintballs, and the closer they are to viability, the more moral standing they have. I think it is sad when a fetus is aborted, and the longer the fetus has been gestating, the sadder it is. I would even say it was usually morally wrong to abort a late-term fetus. But that doesn't imply I want to use force to do anything about it. So legally, I think my "victory condition" is the government stays out of making rules about abortion.

Morally, I'd prefer to live in a world where abortion wasn't treated like a trip to the hair salon, but who I am to judge that that's really what's happening in China with these advertisements? I find them surprising, but I don't think they should be illegal.

All that said, I could imagine supporting a law against very late-term abortions. The real reason I don't is that it's not necessary --- basically nobody is aborting their perfectly healthy 8 1/2 month fetus --- and it's a slippery slope. But on the other hand, I don't blanket agree with your "what a person does with their body" approach either. What's the wedge that lets you accept quarantining people with infectious diseases but not accept preventing very late-term abortions? They are both instances of someone other than X having a say with what X does to their body with the purported goal of protecting Y.

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