CC
>> So our task -- as in almost all the key issues for the left -- is simply
(!) to find ways to shift the locus of struggle. That is a subject of two or
three years (or decades) of discussion.
>>
mbs: This last is the most self-refuting statement in the entire debate.
But who cares about politics; we've got eons to work that out. What's
really important is philosophy, so let's get to it.
I've said what I personally think about abortion is not important to my
argument in this debate, which was about politics. Under any circumstances
I could think of, if my daughter needed my help to get one, legally or
otherwise, I'm sure I would do so. I can't promise not to chafe under rules
I think are good for everybody, in the abstract. I don't pretend to any
moral superiority, only to moral puzzlement.
I can't help noticing that references to the unborn in these threads have
been extremely abbreviated. The only clear one I can remember is Carrol's
analogy to an appendix. An abortion is not ethically different than an
appendectomy, so a fetus is the moral equivalent of an appendix. William
Burroughs gave us talking assholes, and now we have appendices with the
potential to breathe, cry, pee, etc. We have fancy machines to watch them,
take pictures of them. If you want a child, you're a mother and the fetus
is a person. If it dies in childbirth, it is not uncommon to bury them and
put up gravestones. "Here lies 'Michael' . . . " If you don't want a
child, then you're not a mother, you're a woman with a wiggly appendix, or
something. The nature of the fetus, it's inherent rights, or lack thereof,
depends on what a couple of other people who happen to be its originators
think. ('Parents' won't do. Can't be parents without a child, and then
we're in trouble again.) Doesn't that strike anyone as odd?
Another reference hinged on a women's right to control of her own body,
which entailed a right of "disposal"! The connotation is obvious and
probably was unintentional, but it points up the impulse to look away from
the question. In practice, of course, actual 'disposal' of fetuses is a
very touchy matter, not least for the pro-choice among the populace. If a
fetus is an appendix, then it could easily go into the garbage with stuff
you found rotting in the refrigerator. Or we could recycle the material,
perhaps feed it to hogs.
There was Yoshie's point about objectification of women, or denial of their
personhood, which is entirely well-taken when we speak of any limits to
"choice" or "[un]reproductive rights." But nobody spoke to denial of the
humanity of the unborn.
There was a fascinating twist on this issue in a previous debate on LBO. A
disability activist took negative note of the use of abortion as a means of
de-selecting fetuses judged 'disabled' from childbirth. Abortion for
purposes of sex selection is also a well-known practice. But if a fetus is
an appendix, than an imperfect fetus or a female fetus is an imperfect or
female appendix, so no problem. No? Yes? If for the sake of argument,
parents made such decisions with no implications for the disabled persons
among us, then would this be acceptable or not? As CC says, abortion is
just another form of birth control. The right to 'choice' is the right to
act on motives we would find repugnant.
Out of curiosity, I wonder how this blob of ectoplasm known as a fetus is
regarded. What do people think it is exactly, or philosophically? Is it
like an appendix, a second-class Siamese twin, or what?
cheers,
mbs
