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Aswad -> RE: Pro-life Anti-Christian (10/28/2008 3:59:23 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: kittinSol
To carry on a pregnancy or to terminate it are both responsible choices. In many cases, in fact, I believe the choice to terminate comes from a high feeling of personal responsibility (knowing that one will be incapable of raising an infant is the first reason that comes to mind).
Allow me to suggest instead that they are both choices that incur responsibility, and as such merit careful consideration on the part of the one who makes the choice. And, yes, in some cases, the decision is indeed made from a carefully consideration of the situation and one's own position on the issue. But in the majority of cases, provided statistics and personal experience serve me here, it is a matter of convenience, rather than a careful consideration. In my view, the latter is a line of reasoning that does not speak well of the person making the choice, whereas the former is one that does speak well of them, although I may not necessarily agree with their conclusion. Regardless, those are my views, and I have no reason to impose them on anyone else, as I respect choice, and believe that it is necessary for free citizens to be granted the legal right to choose for themselves in order for there to be anything worthwhile for the unborn to aspire to, apart from fighting to reinstate that right.
Personally, while I would not change what is, I am not certain whether it might have been the better choice for me if my mother had not carried to term in the first place. That certainly illustrates the part we agree on, namely the equivalence of both choices as far as the moral responsibility of making a choice on behalf of another is concerned. The "pro-life" position is definitely taking away a choice that the unborn might have made differently, and that they are closing off posibilities that the unborn might have preferred, since suicide is very different from not being born in the first place.
Quite frankly, a vessel that does not have the ability to live without external aid is not in a position to do anything other than accept whatever others choose to give it, including nothing at all, which is nicely summarized in the maxim that "beggars can't be choosers." And the unborn are definitely beggars, and will remain so for years after partuition.
I just happen to have a personal distaste for killing the unborn outside conditions of self-defense, and think existing legislation on self-defense should be used to cover this case, rather than making moral judgements and arbitrary definitions about the essential philosophical and theological (in an expanded sense) points of our existance in a court of law. Seems a lot more clean-cut, really, as it hinges on an existing premise and thereby does not run the risk of aggravating any mistakes, while also being covered if future redactions to the law are made to legalize killing in other contexts than self-defense (well, some places have capital punishment, but they usually require crimes that the unborn are simply incapable of committing). And I don't mind if someone damages themselves in bungling an attempt at killing outside a context of self-defense, either, so that problem is out. Just my take, though.
Annoyingly simple from that perspective, isn't it? [;)]
Health,
al-Aswad.
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