Yoshie Furuhashi wrote: > Michael: > >How would youu begin a dialogue with a woman who is otherwise progressive > >who sincerely believes that abortion is immoral? > > A woman who is *otherwise progressive* but against abortion should be > especially willing to consider what I wrote in the "Abortion & Bargaining" > post: > >Face it, rich women will always have ready > >access to abortion, unless the entire world ceases to provide this medical > >service. So whose bodies can be bargained away? Bodies of poor women, young > >women, rural women, conservative women, women who lack support of their > >family and friends in their reproductive decisions. Limits placed on > >abortion by Roe v. Wade itself, additional limits created by subsequent > >laws, limited availability, cultural limits imposed by moralizing, > >etc.--these numerous compromises have mainly created hardships for such > >women as described above. _______________I don't think this is a very good argument. On a similar basis one could argue that making murder or theft etc. illegal only restricts the right of the poor, since the rich would always get away because of their connections and their capability to hire smart lawyers etc. In the above case, all that the woman who has moral problem with abortion has to do is to ask for the law to punish the women who get abortion outside of the country. If govt. can punish people for distributing medicine in Iraq, why cannot they do this? I think the best way to approach this issue would be to take it on a similar plane as religion is taken in a modern secular liberal democracy. As religion is treated as something private to an individual and the state has no right to interfere in it, pregnancy should be treated similarly as something private to the pregnant woman, where state has no right to interfere. As anybody has a right to propagate her/his religion, both the sides, the side that thinks abortion is immoral as well as the side that thinks that there is nothing immoral about it, should have freedom to propagate their ideas. All everybody has to agree to is that state has no role in this, except to see to it that the right of individuals are upheld. Cheers, ajit sinha > >
