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Re: Theos-World Re: imposition of laws or free choice?

Mar 02, 2003 03:37 PM
by Bart Lidofsky


Steve Stubbs wrote:
--- In theos-talk@yahoogroups.com, Bart Lidofsky <bartl@s...> wrote:

	Straw man argument. Invalid.
You are giving arguments that have nothing to do with the actual arguments given, and then knocking down the phony arguments.

Fact is, if you read Roe vs. Wade carefully, the issue is not at all simple. It is not even about a right to abortion. It is about rights in conflict, and determining which right is greater, or, more precisely, which right is the government required to recognize. The fetus has a right to live which is something less than or equal to the right of a child who has already been born. The mother has a right to have the fetus removed which is less than or equal to her right to an emergency appendectomy.

In the case of abortion, the mother is being used as a human life support machine for the fetus. There is no case where a person is required to be a human life support machine (donating blood or organs, for example) to someone who has already been born. But there is also the case of responsibility, which would go against abortion. The Supreme Court in Roe vs. Wade essentially said that the state was legally incapable of making the decision until the 3rd trimester. (note that this also means that, should a reliable method of fetus transplant or artificial wombs be developed, the right of abortion will no longer be the same thing as right to kill the fetus).

There is also a difference between a religious and a philosophical position; you represent the position of the Catholic Church as religious, when it is in fact a philosophical one (when does life begin? At what point does a fetus become a human being?).

Bart Lidofsky




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