> >And, this is my take: surely it is most just and best for society to have
a
> >legal structure allowing abortions (before, say 12-14 weeks) in order to
> >prevent the sort of back street butchery of the past, but have a strong
> >adoption policy and good education in order to discourage abortions?
>
> No, this does not ring true. It does not make sense to say that:
> Action A is "o.k.", because if Action A is not "o.k." people would perform
> Action A anyways and hurt themselves.
It's not supposed to 'ring true'. It's supposed to be the least-worst
option. If abortion is banned completely, many young women will do many
things to "get rid" of the baby. Whether or not you and I think abortion is
right or wrong, in a society, we have a duty to protect as many as we can.
And, unfortunately, as I said before, it does not have to be complete
"sense", it just has to work.
> The consequences of doing something that is wrong hardly seem like a
> justification for the rightness or wrongness of the action.
Exactly. I'm not making a judgement on right or wrong, I'm saying "This
would work". I believe you'd actually have *less* abortions doing it in the
way I suggest than by simply banning abortion outright, which is the aim,
isn't it? Actually, good point.
John, is your wish to ban abortion, or to reduce the number of abortions
that happen to as small as possible?
Charlie
