| I appreciate the question you posed in your original post. I'd challenge you to engage with GP rather than deriding them. Your comment comes off as a selfish display of moral superiority that shuts down discussion and serves to further polarize. GP pointed out a perceived logical inconsistency in moral reasoning, by definition this is morally considered. I don't think they're acting in bad faith, and while a more inquisitive tone on their part may have avoided heated responses, I don't think GP's line of thought is beyond the pale. I hope we can try to follow where those opinions come from rather than talking past each other. > Thinking that aborting female embryos because they will be considered less important in society is wrong, AND think that removing a women's right to choose entirely based on religious teachings is wrong, AND thinking that forced sterilization of a whole cultural/ethnic group is wrong, are not incompatible. You assert this as if it is inherently true, which isn't going to do anything against a logical challenge. There is a widely-held line of reasoning that your first two statements contradict. In the pro-choice position that women have a positive right to abortion, many people in attempting to understand that position interpret the moral grounds for it to be that the fetus is not a person - it does not have a right to life, therefore terminating its life is moral. That interpretation of the moral justification doesn't come from nowhere, I've heard it in person from people arguing in good faith. Your original post suggests that disseminating information that could cause more women to elect for abortion is morally wrong because it harms marginalized groups. This undermines the moral grounds for abortion as the individual negative right to life is widely held to be the most basic of rights, to be universal to persons, and so if the fetus is to be considered a member of a marginalized group, working backwards it must necessarily be a person and necessarily have the right to life. Therefore it is illogical considering only these three factors to hold all simultaneously: (i) a fetus does not have a negative right to life, (ii) a woman has a positive right to abortion, (iii) a fetus can be a member of a marginalized group of persons, as (iii) contradicts (i), leaving (ii) unjustified. That line of reasoning is consistent. It flows forwards from individuality, that group rights are derived from individual rights, the personal right to life, and that personhood is a necessary condition for membership in a group of persons. It hinges on the assumption that the moral justification for abortion is that a fetus is not a person, and does not have a right to life. One legitimate rebuttal to GPs probe, and defense for your 3 assertions, is that there is an alternative moral justification for the pro choice position. It's not that a fetus does not have a right to life, but that a woman's rights to bodily autonomy and self-determination, or some other factors, supersede the fetus' right to life. There are more, but "your thoughts are backwards" isn't one of them. That's exactly the imposition of dogma that other commenters are fretting over. I'd be curious to hear your opinion on the recent case of a pregnant woman in Texas pulled over in the HOV lane who argued that due to the state's legislation limiting abortion, the fetus inside her should qualify as a person and so she is justified in driving there. EDIT: typo |