(February 25, 2012 at 4:32 am)Tiberius Wrote:(February 24, 2012 at 8:26 pm)Minimalist Wrote: Meanwhile, for a guy who wants the government (allegedly) out of people's private lives you seem very ready to get them between a woman's legs.
...because babies have private lives too Min. Like I've said before, if abortion were able to remove the baby unharmed and have it live in an artificial womb until it was born, I would have *no* objections to it. My only objection to abortion is that it is a government sanctioned killing of a human life, and I don't believe anyone has a right to do that unless it is in self defence.
I'm not sure "government sanctioned" is the fairest description for it when a government does not prohibiit abortion. It isn't as if the government recommends abortion. As a libertarian you generally want the government out of the sanctioning business.
Elsewhere you say you are not a moral objectivist. That can't be right. You obviously feel that abortion is always morally wrong and therefore impermissible. I and many others don't agree with you. Some on my side would agree with you that it is morally wrong but still the lesser of two evils compared with forcing the woman to carry a child she doesn't want. Others will agree with me that morals are strictly a personal matter and therefore only those of the woman considering the abortion matter. I don't know what the numbers are but lets say we are evenly divided between those in favor of prohibiting abortion and those in favor of letting the woman decide. Unless you really feel abortion is absolutely morally wrong, why in the world would you -a libertarian- wish to impose that on the rest of us?
I know about your concern for the fetus. I also remember that you feel the law needs to be consistent. Of course we want the law to be enforced consistently but we want to formulate the law in a way that makes the correct distinctions. Manslaughter vs intent matters. Planned vs heat of the moment matters. Mentally competent matters. If half of us feel that the circumstances which initiated the beginning of life also matter but you don't, exactly why should we concede to your sense of consistency? This is clearly a distinction which the law needs to get right.
Your contention seems to be that once life is started the intent of those who started it is of no concern. Well that is what is at issue. We say it is. What do you have to say to the rest of us about why this distinction doesn't matter?
