Abortion.
If there is any topic more charged than religion (even though it is usually so charged due to religious ideas), that is it.
So, this was posted today on my lovely girlfriend’s blog (http://martinellivarietyhour.blogspot.com/2011/12/value-of-adult-life.html) about a facebook discussion which was itself about some PA legislation which will create problems for women’s health in the state.
I’m mobile, so I want to keep this short. Everyone is legally entitled to their opinions ad beliefs, but we are not logically or rationally entitled to them.
The reason this is the case is that there is an objective world out there (ok, there is an inter-subjective world which we share and of which we have no direct knowledge–but I risk envoking Kant here so I shall return to the question at hand).
In any case, we share access to empirical facts about the real world, and any proposition, fact, and value we have access to is subject to that world. We have to test those things againt our empirical methodologies. We have to test our opinions against reality.
And this is true for all subjects of consideration. It is true of religious beliefs, moral declarations, facts about the nature of reality, etc. The certainty we can have about a fact is relative to the amount of empirical information we have about it.
And with abortion, we have access to a lot of information. Fetuses are not sentient. They have not conscioussness nor conscience. They have no souls (whatever those things are supposed to be). They are not people. They might become people, but they are not people.
Adult women are people. They are sentient, conscious, and their consciences are usually in full swing when they are contemplating such a heavy proposition as getting an abortion. Until the thing growing in them approaches any level of sentience or awareness, she has every right to get rid of it as she would any parasite, bacteria, etc.
There is no reason—moral, rational, or religious—to be anti-choice.
In 1978 I had an abortion, ’80 gave birth to daughter whom I parented, ’84 gave birth to a daughter whom i relinquished for adoption (she’s 27) whom I still see today, 87 to another daughter who at 1 mo. & 6 days died, 93 another daughter then in 97 a son. I have 2 grandsons telling both my daughters I would stand beside them in any decision they made. (they are both 8 months of age). As far as i’m concerned just because you had an orgazim or container for one does not make you fit or responsible to be a parent. A-mom-grandma-from-all-angles. Parenting is the hardest job on the face of this planet, it’s the least one recognized as…. & the least one taught as a job.