[mminer237]

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.

[gobrewers14]

> 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.

[Jason_Protell]

I don't have the energy to continue engaging with these conversations, but I'd just like to point out one inconsistency in your comment.

"In the eyes of roughly half the country..."

61% of the country believes abortion should be legal. 39% is closer to 1/3 than 1/2.

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/06/13/about-six-i...

[dragonwriter]

> 39% is closer to 1/3 than 1/2.

37% is even more closer to 1/3; I wouldn’t count the 2% that don’t have a position with the pro-ban faction.

[Jason_Protell]

True.