The Moral Horror of Pregnancy

Pregnancy entails profound physical, psychological, and long-lasting consequences for a woman - it is not a mere "inconvenience" - her freedoms are significantly restricted if she is forced to carry to term.

[People have] started talking about the need to recognize and respect the moral value of the fetus. Some laws recognize fetuses as persons deserving of protection, such as a new federal law that makes fetuses a separate victim when a pregnant woman is assaulted. [Some even say that this "fetus" is a person!] Do we really want to travel down this dangerous road?

Anti-choicers insist that the key question in the abortion debate is whether a fetus is a person or not. If so, abortion is murder, they say, and therefore obviously immoral and illegal. That is not the key question at all, of course - anti-choicers are committing the "fetus focus fallacy." The practice of abortion is unrelated to the status of the fetus - it hinges totally on the aspirations and needs of women.

As soon as we bestow special rights on fetuses, we separate them from their mothers and create an adversarial relationship that hurts both.

I edited the order of the above statements, but they are all straight from the horse's mouth. Twisted thinking at its best. Historically, unfavored groups in a morally blunted society have their concept of "personhood" rationalized away so that harming them can be justified. It is unsurprising then that the author goes to some length to emphasize that unborn children must never be considered "persons." Doing so might raise the terrible specter of human compassion. And we can't have that, can we?

Imagine. Moral outrage that a woman should mourn the loss of her unborn child as that of a person. This author purports to speak for all women, but what about the women whom she wants to strip of their right to value and cherish her own unborn child, as most women do so very much? Many women who experience miscarriages mourn the loss of a baby - not a detached "clump of cells."

Read this bit of satire, compare to the above linked text, then dare to tell me that there is a marked difference between satire and reality.

This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, Without natural affection... from such turn away.