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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank

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To: Lane3 who wrote (17372)	6/26/2001 12:22:02 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) of 82486

Once upon a time we had pro-abortion and anti-abortion. Now we have pro-choice and pro-life. The change was more than finding more attractive labels. The pro-abortion types co-opted the middle and took on the pro-choice label as their umbrella label. We forget now that, within the pro-choice camp we have everything from Chinese one-child types to abortion agnostics. There are lots and lots of people in the pro-choice camp who hate abortion but who don't think that we have enough certainty or consensus to call a fetus a human and, therefore, call abortion murder. You can argue about what the middle is. Everyone who it at all close the the middle will probably think of themselves as being in the middle and those to either side as being the extremists. A peaceful pro-life person is "in the middle" between a pro-choice person and a terrorist blowing up abortion clinics. But compromise amounts to coming to an agreement between the contending sides. In the abortion issue the contending sides are the pro-life and the pro-choice side. The pro-abortion (i.e. not just "abortion should be legal", but people who would actively promote or even require abortions) and the anti birthcontrol (and maybe anti anything but missionary position sex for the purposes of procreation between a married man and woman) groups both exist but the question is should abortion be legal. The only thing that would strike me as a possible compromise is that some abortions would be illegal and some would not, but this compromise would probably not be acceptable to either side and doesn't seem to have a solid rational behind it except that it would somehow be in the middle. Some people have proposed the idea that abortions after 12 weeks (or any other specific time period) be illegal, but how many people would really get behind such an idea? The pro-life people would still see it as allowing millions of murders to occur and the pro-choice people would still see it as taking away women's freedom and control over their own bodies. That's not unlike the continuum of thinking on the global warming issue. For many, while they have some concerns about the prospect of global warming, they don't think we have enough certainty to jump into Kyoto with both feet given the cost and disruption that would cause. Similarly, we have those who look at making abortion illegal much as you look at Kyoto. We just don't know enough or have enough of a consensus to take such a drastic step. Maybe later, but not now. My analogy with global warming and Kyoto would be that you are trying to consider Kyoto as the compromise because there are some people who would want to ban the burning of fossil fuels so the people who only want the limitations of Kyoto would be in the middle. However there are also people who think global warming would help, or who think we might be cooling so adding CO2 is a good idea. The real question is Kyoto restrictions (or something similar) or no. Both sides would obviously like to consider their position to be the middle or a compromise but a real compromise would be to either allow a watered down Kyoto treaty or come up with some new plan that is less controversial. It would be difficult to do this in the global warming area but it is still easier to find a compromise here then when dealing with abortion. Tim

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