Some Thoughts on Murder
Mar. 31st, 2006 02:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
revenaI just read a very moving article about one woman's participation in the Haven Coalition (linked from Feministe), and then the comments to that article, and one of them kinda jumped out at me:
Dear Rabbi's Wife,
Encouraging women to have abortions is NOT a mitzvah. Unless the mother's life is in danger or the foetus is seriously deformed, abortion is murder.
Posted by David G. Singer on 03.30.06
I don't really want to go into what I feel to be true about the morality of abortion. I don't know how many of my readers share my political views, but I do know that most of you are here more for odd little stories about my daily life, rather than polemics on highly controversial topics. Of course, my thoughts about things like abortion are part of my daily life... So I'm trying to strike a balance with a post like this one - I don't want to say too much, but I also don't want to say too little. Both actions would be offensive, in one way or another.
With all of that as a lead-up, now I'm going to talk about why statements like Mr. Singer's drive me absolutely up the wall. If contemplating this makes you uncomfortable, you may not want to click the cut.
Forget we're talking about abortion, for a minute. I know that's hard, but try to ignore the broader context, and just focus on the logic of what this man has said.
A particular act is murder. Unless another person's life can be saved by it. Or the person being killed is deformed.
I'm sorry, guys, but it doesn't work that way. We don't get to say that one person's life is more valuable than another's. If a fetus is a full-on person, then we don't have the right to weigh the mother's life as worth more than the fetus's. We don't get to say that the life of a person with a disability is worth less than the life of a person without.
It makes no sense to say that something is murder except when it's not. It either is, or it isn't.
Myself, I vote for isn't.
The woman in question - the mother - is a person, full-fledged, undeniable. The fetus - not so much. It is my opinion that a fetus is a potential person. I would dearly love to live in a world where all potential people are given the opportunity to grow into real people, surrounded by love, and care, and plenty. But I don't. And if I have to choose between potential people, and people who already exist, then that's an easy choice. And the word "murder" doesn't even enter into it.
I'm not going to pretend that this position isn't fabulously complicated. It is. And my exact viewpoint on it changes almost daily.
But one thing that doesn't change, not for me, is the recognition that rhetoric like Mr. Singers is, pardon my language, bullshit.
Dear Rabbi's Wife,
Encouraging women to have abortions is NOT a mitzvah. Unless the mother's life is in danger or the foetus is seriously deformed, abortion is murder.
Posted by David G. Singer on 03.30.06
I don't really want to go into what I feel to be true about the morality of abortion. I don't know how many of my readers share my political views, but I do know that most of you are here more for odd little stories about my daily life, rather than polemics on highly controversial topics. Of course, my thoughts about things like abortion are part of my daily life... So I'm trying to strike a balance with a post like this one - I don't want to say too much, but I also don't want to say too little. Both actions would be offensive, in one way or another.
With all of that as a lead-up, now I'm going to talk about why statements like Mr. Singer's drive me absolutely up the wall. If contemplating this makes you uncomfortable, you may not want to click the cut.
Forget we're talking about abortion, for a minute. I know that's hard, but try to ignore the broader context, and just focus on the logic of what this man has said.
A particular act is murder. Unless another person's life can be saved by it. Or the person being killed is deformed.
I'm sorry, guys, but it doesn't work that way. We don't get to say that one person's life is more valuable than another's. If a fetus is a full-on person, then we don't have the right to weigh the mother's life as worth more than the fetus's. We don't get to say that the life of a person with a disability is worth less than the life of a person without.
It makes no sense to say that something is murder except when it's not. It either is, or it isn't.
Myself, I vote for isn't.
The woman in question - the mother - is a person, full-fledged, undeniable. The fetus - not so much. It is my opinion that a fetus is a potential person. I would dearly love to live in a world where all potential people are given the opportunity to grow into real people, surrounded by love, and care, and plenty. But I don't. And if I have to choose between potential people, and people who already exist, then that's an easy choice. And the word "murder" doesn't even enter into it.
I'm not going to pretend that this position isn't fabulously complicated. It is. And my exact viewpoint on it changes almost daily.
But one thing that doesn't change, not for me, is the recognition that rhetoric like Mr. Singers is, pardon my language, bullshit.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-31 11:19 pm (UTC)I think the technical term is "Accepted!"