Political Cartoon

two_iron · Feb 25, 2023

two_iron · Feb 25, 2023

two_iron · Feb 25, 2023

Doug1943 · Feb 25, 2023

I'm not against abortion, within reasonable limits, but I think this argument doesn't hold water, logically. Although if you're already 'pro-choice' it probably works for you.

Let's apply the logic of this argument to laws against murder of people who have been born.

All the people I know, Left or Right, are against murder, as legally and common-sensically defined.

So, is it a powerful argument of the Left to say: Ha, you conservatives are against murder, but, once safe from being murdered, you lose interest in the potential murder victim, instead of being for his/her total welfare being the interest of the state, from the cradle to the grave. If you're really against murder, you have to be for socialism.

I expect a conservative would reply, we're actually against socialism -- or your version of the total welfare state -- precisely because we do care for the person, and we've seen what happens in socialist states. So actually, if you're against murder, if you really want to see the full free development of people in liberty, you should be against the indefinite expansion of state power, just as we are.

So we're quits.

Which brings us back to what we should be arguing about: which, if any, state (ie government) powers should be extended into things that a responsible adult would normally take care of for themselves?

Which, if any, alterations should we make to the free play of the market, which generally has done so much to lift humanity out of backwardness.

The abortion argument is inherently one that muddles thinking, unless you have an extreme (literally) position on either side.

That is, if you believe that once a sperm touches and begins to embed itself in an egg, it's a human being with all the rights we want outside-the-womb human beings to have ... then it's easy.

Or, if you believe that the mother alone, right up to a few minutes before birth, should be able to kill the whatever-you-call-it in her womb ... then it's easy.

Most of us don't embrace a position at either extreme. But then we have the problem ... when is that entity a human being with rights, since the development from sperm-in-an-egg, to fully-formed-ready-to-be-born baby has no discrete 'leaps' ... it's a slow, smooth change from one hour to the next. Any line you draw is going to be arbitrary ... why not one week earlier or one week later?

So this is inherently an argument which will generate lots of emotion, and few reasonable arguments. (And it's also an argument in which some of the central fundamental attitudes of Left and Right are switched, further confusing things: the Right tends to individualism, keep-the-state-out-of-my-affairs, with the Left believing we're-all-in-this-together and the state must protect the weak against the strong, children against adults (even againstg their parents sometimes, thus compulsory education laws and child welfare laws).

But here it's reversed.