| My statement wasn't "things that disproportionally affect people based on sex"; it was specifically "policies [that] have outcomes that disproportionately burden women." This is a pretty common conception of the term "sexism" in policy-making circles; sometimes it's specifically explicated as "structural sexism" to distinguish it from interpersonal/individual sexism, but it's a valid use of the word. I did not say the policy's disproportionate affect should be the sole consideration; I did say it's worth considering, because in practice the vast majority of ethical questions are not simple binaries; we have to weigh competing needs/desires/etc and decide what the best course based on all the factors at play. My intention is not to "blur things intentionally" but to encourage thinking about this in a less black-and-white way, and explore some unexamined (arguably irrational!) assumptions that seemed present in your original post. For instance, you said: > When does it go from cells to alive inside the mother? ...with the implication that answering this will give us a "rational" and correct answer to the ethical question. But there is nothing about <i>this framing itself</i> that is objective or rational. Knowing that a life <i>is</i> at some point (via whatever scientific definition we've chosen) doesn't tell us what <i>ought</i> be done about it; in general you can't derive an ought from an is; you could <i>easily</i> instead reframe the ethical question as "is there some point when a fetus's life is more important than the woman's bodily autonomy," and come up with a very different set of heuristics for answering the question. You can pick an objectively measurable line but the choice of what that line is, and what to do about it, are not a thing that can be objectively chosen. My intended point wrt Texas is that, based on the discrepancy between polling data and the law as written, it seems like the representatives in Texas have passed a law that is in fact <i>more</i> restrictive than what the majority of voters want; ergo, I don't think it actually reflects the majority's intuitions on when abortion should be OK. But this really isn't my main point; I'm mainly trying to point out this isn't a question that can be solved solely by finding some science answer, and an attempt to sway voters solely on that type of argument seems not-correct based on everything we understand about how people in modern democracies make such decisions. |