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- Newsgroups: talk.abortion
- Path: sparky!uunet!spool.mu.edu!nigel.msen.com!heifetz!rotag!kevin
- From: kevin@rotag.mi.org (Kevin Darcy)
- Subject: Re: Jim, the chastity belt theory, and me, Part 6
- Message-ID: <1992Nov22.005547.17577@rotag.mi.org>
- Organization: Who, me???
- References: <32736@rnd.GBA.NYU.EDU> <1992Nov17.065357.18024@panix.com>
- Date: Sun, 22 Nov 1992 00:55:47 GMT
- Lines: 30
-
- In article <1992Nov17.065357.18024@panix.com> jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb) writes:
- >
- >You've never given a comprehensible explanation for your references to
- >punishment and similar things. Also, the issue is not whether I'm
- >willing to sacrifice something but whether legal compulsion is
- >appropriate to keep someone else from sacrificing something.
-
- Doubletalk. As far as I can tell, you are proposing that women be forced to
- sacrifice their bodily autonomy. Sounds like punishment to me.
-
- >To repeat myself: the motivation for forbidding abortion is that the
- >z/e/f has value.
-
- And the woman's bodily autonomy doesn't?
-
- >The reason for an exception in the case of rape is
- >that the law does not command that all good things be done -- it also
- >requires that the person commanded to do the good thing be someone who
- >may appropriately be assigned the obligation. A common basis for
- >obligation is that people are responsible for the forseeable
- >consequences of their voluntary actions.
-
- Given that abortion is currently legal, the "foreseeable consequence" of
- becoming accidentally and/or unwillingly pregnant, all other medical/social/
- economic factors being equal, is to obtain an abortion. So, you see, I don't
- disagree about the basis for the obligation, but I do disagree over the nature
- and extent of the consequence you propose. Can you give me a defensible reason
- to change the consequence into something more burdensome than it currently is?
-
- - Kevin
-