How would you differentiate this argument for abortion versus for slavery? Should it be legalized, and the government just tell people not to do it if it violates their conscience?
In the eyes of roughly half the country, it's plainly injust to allow anybody to murder what they believe to clearly be a human being just because the other half believes they're subhuman.
It's the government's job to punish injustice, even if the actors don't believe they're being unjust. Very few people in prison will say they did anything wrong. In their eyes, their crime was justified. Everybody thinks they're doing the right thing. Like it or not, it's the government's job to determine if that's true or not in many cases.
> How would you differentiate this argument for abortion versus for slavery?
Slavery unambiguously violates the autonomy of another human being.
If it could be demonstrated scientifically what life is and when it begins and that happens to be at conecption, then yes, abortion should be outlawed. But we don't know this. In a free and open society, in the absence of knowledge, we should default to people making their own choices; we should default to freedom and not restriction.
To deprive someone of life is a crime, hence, someone who believes life begins at conception is advocating against unlawful killing, and crimes are certainly the purview of the state and society.
Are you willfully misrepresenting other arguments? There's a curious pattern in these threads of you ducking out of conversations when nuance is attempted.
The remainder of the reasonable discussion around this topic is centered around the blurry point between inception and when viable birth is possible. The vast majority of people would classify a fetus, minutes before birth, being aborted as murder.
As well, in most countries restrictions occur at some point in the pregnancy (recognition of the trade-off between bodily autonomy and the rights of the unborn). In my country that happens to be nine weeks unless there's an emergency.
This ruling does not prohibit anything. Regardless, in a democracy other people's beliefs are entirely a sufficient condition in what the government will do. Maybe not sufficient reasoning for you, but again, it's a democracy, not your fiefdom.
Missouri just banned abortion as a result of this being overturned, so yes, it does.
> other people's beliefs are entirely a sufficient condition in what the government will do
False. Other people's beliefs are a necessary condition. If I convince 51% of the populace geminis are evil and should be imprisoned, this is not a sufficient condition for the government to implement this policy. We would need to scientifically demonstrate that astrology is in fact true. This is the sufficient condition. The necessary condition is a majority believing it. Likewise, having an objective, unambiguous, scientific definition of what life is and when it begins is the sufficient condition for outlawing abortion and a majority believing that is the necessary condition. A characteristic of a free society is not one where the government creates laws based on the whims of particular religious groups.
> Missouri just banned abortion as a result of this being overturned, so yes, it does.
No, it doesn't, Missouri's laws have prohibited abortion.
> If I convince 51% of the populace geminis are evil and should be imprisoned, this is not a sufficient condition for the government to implement this policy. We would need to scientifically demonstrate that astrology is in fact true.
Government is not bound by what is scientifically demonstrated, thus making this statement and the rest of what you wrote, incorrect.
> A characteristic of a free society is not one where the government creates laws based on the whims of particular religious groups.
Hundreds, if not thousands of years of fairly consistent belief that life is sacred is hardly a whim, neither is the opposition to Roe v Wade from certain religious groups. It's also not characteristic of free society, governments put in place plenty of silly laws "on a whim" in free societies.
> Government is not bound by what is scientifically demonstrated
You're implying:
something is scientifically demonstrated -> government is bound by it
What I said was:
government has bounded something -> it can be scientifically or logically demonstrated
> Hundreds, if not thousands of years of fairly consistent belief that life is sacred is hardly a whim
You're appealing to the populace. How long or who believes something has no bearing on whether or not it is true or whether anyone should care about it. People thought the earth was the center of the universe for a long time too. Also, something cannot be "sacred" universally, only conditionally.
In the eyes of roughly half the country, it's plainly injust to allow anybody to murder what they believe to clearly be a human being just because the other half believes they're subhuman.
It's the government's job to punish injustice, even if the actors don't believe they're being unjust. Very few people in prison will say they did anything wrong. In their eyes, their crime was justified. Everybody thinks they're doing the right thing. Like it or not, it's the government's job to determine if that's true or not in many cases.