kevinbgoode (1000+ posts) Click to send private message to this author Click to view this author's profile Click to add this author to your buddy list Click to add this author to your Ignore list Sun Jan-16-11 03:14 AM
Response to Reply #7
16. Whenever I hear someone telling me it is murder
I always ask them if a miscarriage is considered involuntary manslaughter. . .
I was asked this very question back in August '10.
I asked if the mother in the hypothetical had spontaneously aborted do to some physiological condition beyond her control or if it was induced due to bad behavior on her part, i.e. being a heavy drinker.
My interlocutor was wholly unprepared because, I believe, he had not given it any thought because he did not think I would have given the issue any because I was supposed to comport with his preconceptions of being the brain-washed "fundie" (the beer in my hand, like the 7 others before it, was apparently unable to disabuse him of this notion).
After he stopped blinking he supposed a scenario wherein the mother was beset by a medical condition not of her choosing.
"Then why," I asked, "would I punish a woman more than likely already distraught over the loss of a child she would prefer to keep?"
"So what if she was a heavy drinker and that caused her to lose the baby?"
"Then why should I be concerned with someone who had so little care over her single greatest responsibility?"
He actually went on to fulminate about why it was just her responsibility exclusively. I pointed out that terms of exclusivity had never been offered by me but his complaint was interesting in light of the fact that the choice of keeping or aborting were--according to liberals--exclusively the mothers.
The conversation dragged on for another 3 hours.