I am offering a couple of comments. Someone may choose to pick up on one or all:
1) Actually, for purposes of the criminal law, society's interest is asserted, not an individual interest. Thus, if society decided that aborting a human organism damaged the concept of the sanctity of innocent life, and contributed to social degradation, it would have an interest in curtailing the practice. Further, the right of privacy implied in the Constitution is by no means absolute, as it can be easily violated with a warrant obtained through due process of law. Thus, the premise that the state can have no legitimate interest in the regulation of abortion in the first trimester, and the assertion of such a high bar of privacy, is bogus, and Roe v. Wade should be overturned, and the question remanded to state legislatures, where it belongs.
2) Either there is a moral order to the universe, or there is not. If there is not, a universalist morality can still be constructed on the basis of human fulfillment, in the same way that we use the concept of health normatively. Otherwise, it is simply a matter of taste, and the various "moralities" that develop are incommensurable. If there is a moral order to the universe, then man has dominion, for the simple reason that he is the creature capable of controlling his environment and domesticating other animals. If morality is based on a notion of human fulfillment, man has dominion, because the ultimate goal is the humanization of his environment. Only in a morality without rational basis does man not have dominion........ |
