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Monday, August 18, 2014

Sticking my nose in the abortion debate

My "official" view use to be that abortions are morally wrong but not a serious enough "sin" to cause one much harm (karmically speaking if one thinks that way) except late term, and that the practical problems trying to make them illegal, along with the worse harms this can cause, is enough to say that the government should not involve itself.  For the most part government should not involve itself in personal moral decisions absent damn good reason to do so and then only if making the act illegal doesn't itself cause harm.  Abortion fails on both points.

I have changed my mind.  I no longer think an abortion immoral.  There is no logical basis for such a conclusion that bears scrutiny.  To be sure sentient beings must be accorded all possible compassion, but that does not go so far as to say one should never eat meat, and, besides, a fetus is barely if at all sentient.  A human being does not become sentient for quite a while even after birth.

Of course this opens one up to the question of whether infanticide should be legal, and for the most part, with a few exceptions, the answer has to be no, for the legal issue of defining murder, not for moral reasons.

Pregnant women who, for whatever reason, do not want the child are under no moral obligation, in my view, to carry it, and should not be told otherwise.  Part of the psychological harm done to girls who do have abortions are people's judgmentalism, which is misplaced and harmful.

In fact, I think girls having abortions, if they are to receive counseling, should not be to try to change their minds.  Such things should be illegal and open the person doing them to tort liability.  Instead, any counseling should be to the effect that it is not immoral, along with perhaps some training in contraception techniques.

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