by James S » Dec 10, 2005 @ 4:45pm
The value of life is not just about the child, but about the lives of the people that partake in abortion.
There are people out there, like Andy, that like abortion because they see it as making them "free" from the responsibilities of their actions and the constructs of society. By becoming free from society they lose everything that makes them human, such as values, character, and society itself. It devalues his own life because it claims that he is nothing more than the sum total of the imperatives of his instincts and biological impulses. It devalues the life of his partner by saying that she is nothing more than a warm place to put it. And it devalues society by claiming that the entire structure of humanness is without worth because of his desire to leave behind its responsibilities because it claims that only he is important in society - not his partner, not anyone else, and not the 'confining' society and its responsibilities itself - which is counter to the nature of society, and because it derides the value of each human being individually within the collective society.
You may not see it as murder, but it has the same net result because murder devalues human life and society in the same ways.
So, as you can tell, I don't have a clue why an argument about abortion should not include the value of human life. To say "we're not arguing that" is a sure copout.
I'm far from a fundy, by the way. I believe in the maximum amount of social liberities possible that will still allow for a cohesive and defined societal structure. I'm even in a weird way pro-choice in a wider sense, even though I find things such as abortion to be despicable.
It's funny, because fundamentalists usually are blamed for having a myopic or blinding focus on themselves and not being able to see the broader picture. But I, the only person arguing about the net effect of an act on society, am being called a fundy. Maybe it's time for some introspection, guys.
And Andy, it's the "Oxford of the South".
