After a friend printed a misguided defence of abortion (from her comments thread)

[fpb]

Rephrase your premise as follows:
I don't agree with abortions... but if they're going to happen (which they will), they need to be safe and legal.
I don't agree with rape... but if they're going to happen (which they will), they need to be safe and legal.
I don't agree with burglary... but if they're going to happen (which they will), they need to be safe and legal.
I don't agree with assault... but if they're going to happen (which they will), they need to be safe and legal.
I don't agree with embezzlement... but if they're going to happen (which they will), they need to be safe and legal.
I don't agree with fraud... but if they're going to happen (which they will), they need to be safe and legal.
I don't agree with forced marriage... but if they're going to happen (which they will), they need to be safe and legal.

etc., etc., etc.....

Excuse me, if something is wrong, why the Hell should it be safe and legal, only because "it's going to happen"? Crime is always "going to happen". That is the point of having laws. We do not have laws against something which, though wrong, is never going to happen (e.g. there is no law against stealing someone's soul). The point of having a law against it is to state that it is a disapproved and forbidden activity, and that, if you are caught (which, alas, will not always be the case), you will be punished. This trash about "it's going to happen anyway" is simply something that abortionists repeat ad nauseam, on the principle that if we hear a statement often enough we're going to take it for granted.

Comments

Drawing the line

[culturalnomad.livejournal.com]

When you decide that one human life has less value than another, or that one person has the right to decide whether another can live or die, where does it end?

Hitler considered that the German (or "Aryan") race was superior to the Jewish race, and that allowing the Jews to live was a threat to the racial purity of the superior Aryan race. So his solution to the "Jewish problem" was to attempt to exterminate the Jews.

Unfortunately, he wasn't the only one with such ideas. British settlers in Tasmania massacred the indigenous Tasmanian people, because they considered them less than human, and definitely less important than the "civilised" whites. Similar things happened over and over again across the Americas and in parts of Africa. The local inhabitants were deemed "savages" and somehow less worthy of life than the white settlers.

Steven J. Gould (quoted in Bones of Contention, by Marvin L. Lubenow) told a story of Dutch settlers in South Africa in the 1800s, who shot and ate an African Bushman, believing that the Bushman represented such a low race of beings that he was no different from one of the great apes or some other animal.

Someday our descendants may be as horrified by what is happening today as we are (or profess to be) when faced with these cases from the past. Will the world ever learn?

Re: Drawing the line

[headnoises.livejournal.com]

When you decide that one human life has less value than another, or that one person has the right to decide whether another can live or die, where does it end?

EXACTLY my logic.

I am alright with the death penalty-- if people are stupid and get themselves killed, there's not a lot I can do about it.

But killing those who have done no wrong? How evil can you get?

Re: Drawing the line

[thysanotus.livejournal.com]

So you're a pacifist then? How do you feel about the current war in Iraq?

What about your diet? If you have such regard for life, are you a vegan? Better yet, since even innocent plant life must die for you to live, are you a breatharian?

Re: Drawing the line

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Troll alert. Warning: do not feed the troll.

Re: Drawing the line

[culturalnomad.livejournal.com]

I did specify HUMAN life. I think that covers all the questions in your second paragraph.

As for the questions in your first paragraph about war and the current war in Iraq -- I can't see their relevance to this discussion. If you want an answer, for the record, so to speak, check in on my blog now and then. I may write on it someday there.

Re: Drawing the line

[fpb.livejournal.com]

[in a plaintive tone] Why are you feeding the troll?

Re: Drawing the line

[culturalnomad.livejournal.com]

OCD?