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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lazarus_Long who wrote (37189)	11/17/2001 3:57:05 PM
From: J. C. Dithers	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

Your example is flawed. If a woman's life is in jeopardy from a pregnancy gone awry, a surgeon does not come in to perform an "abortion." He comes in to perform a surgical procedure to save the woman's life. A surgeon in this situation would do all in his power to save the fetus, not abort it, along with saving the mother. There are times when this very result occurs. There are other times when saving the fetus does not succeed, perhaps due to stage of development. If the fetus unavoidably dies in such an instance , no reasonable person would even think of calling it an "abortion." Nor did the law view that as an abortion when abortion was a crime.

To: Lazarus_Long who wrote (37189)	11/19/2001 1:31:22 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

But why is the mother's life more valuable than the child's? Did I say it was? Did I make any statement about the relative value of the lives of the people involved? And why should "this country" matter? I thought we were dealing with universal moral questions here. I would say that we are dealing both with more general moral questions and a political issue. When the moral question is more clear cut (intentionally killing an innocent person or refraing from killing an innocent) then I would be more willing to have the state intervene. When the moral question becomes more complex (making one person die to avoid causing the death of another) and the proposed intervention (outlawing abortion even when the mother's life is in danger without one) is more extreme and unpopular (a strong minority is pro-life, but almost no one would support the idea that abortion should be illegal even to save the life of the mother), then I am less likely to support the intervention. You could say that the the proposed state intervention has to meet a much higher standard in that situation. In that situation you are not saving a life without destroying another, and you are imposing the solution against the will of 99+% of the population. Tim