Quote:
Originally posted by bilmore
Um, that sort of leaves an unresolved issue . . .
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I adress this in brief later, but you know me, I don't STP. I believe that the debate over conflicting rights should favor the life in being. This is not an unheard of concept. Forinstance, until very recently, nearly all states' murder statutes limited their application to lives in being. You couldn't be charged with murdering a fetus. There were anti-abortion criminal laws, but they were separate.
You could argue that the fetus is a life. I can't deny that absolutely. However, to the extent one views the fetus as a life, I submit it's interests are subordinate to the life in being, i.e., the mother.
We as a society make decisions about whose life will be favored all the time. For instance, in stem cell debate, Bush favors destroying the lives represented by frozen embryos rather than creating sgtem cells. That is a decision to destroy life. Perversely, it is also a decision to throw these lives away knowing that doing so will have the collateral effect of killing millions of diabetics and others whose lives could be saved by stem cell research. Similarly, the Republican Party plank favoring a ban on abortion makes no provision for abortion where the mother's life is threatened by carrying the fetus to term. That represents a choice to favor the life of the fetus over that of the mother.
My position does not beg the question. Any position will ultimately require a choice as to who will live and who will die in at least some cases. I have stated what my preference for the decision is. We can agree or disagree, but don't try to tell me that a contrary position favors life any more than mine does.
