Wednesday, January 29, 2003

Calvinist Libertarians has a reply to my post on abortion. I'll give it some thought, busy now.

UPDATE: The reply is a good one. I am forced to bit the bullet and accept that certain very retarded and very brain-damaged human beings are not people. This is almost as tough a bullet to bite as the admission that infanticide in the case of a two-week-old baby is also permissible. I'm forced to accept these things by the fact that it's clear to me that at the time when the fetus has no brain tissue it is permissible to kill it. I know it is okay to remove and let die a cell of my skin. I can't see any relevant difference between that cell and the brainless fetal cells. I must therefore accept that killing is permissible in the aforementioned very unsettling cases. Anyway, it's clear to me that this is the only plausible pro-choice argument. The usual one is hopeless. It's either pro-life or the case I'm making. Nothing else is tenable.

UPDATE: Calvinist Libertarian has more. I ask him to consider how powerfully common sense tells him that crushing a skin cell is permissible. Anyway, as for this partial-birth abortion issue, it's a monstrous issue about which the pro-choice side is full of utter nonsense, and their nonsense is due to the fact that their case for abortion is full of holes.