Were it not for the apparently huge number of women willing to make a radical incompetent, Kamala Harris, the leader of the nation because she favors allowing mothers to kill their unborn children at will, the Democrats would be facing the prospect of a landslide loss come November. Almost every other major demographic group has moved toward Trump and for a very obvious reason: the Biden Presidency has been a disaster, and the Democratic Party has abandoned any fealty to American values, principles and democracy in pursuit of unbridled power. Yet a growing number of voters now say abortion is their top issue in 2024. Amazing. Amazing and indefensible morally and ethically.
Think about that. Abortion—killing unborn human beings—is the most important issue for millions of voters. This isn’t a virtue or a process embraced by admirable cultures: the Soviet Union used abortion as a primary form of birth control, and so has China. These are nations that do not value human life as our founding documents declare that our unique society does. Abortion doesn’t make America stronger economically, or keep the world safe from ruthless foreign regimes, or help small businesses thrive, or make the nation energy independent; it doesn’t make our public education any better, reduce crime, drug addiction and disease. In the vast majority of cases, abortion accomplishes two objectives: it allows women an extra level of protection if their sexual activity results in an inconvenient pregnancy, and it lets mothers employ medical professionals to kill their unwanted children before the law protects those innocent lives.
That’s the most important issue to millions of Democratic voters. Not the competence of the President that they will vote for, not any of the serious and important issues that will effect the lives of the majority of Americans who will never have any use for an abortion, nor the prospects of survival for the American experiment itself. Abortion.
It is even worse than that, though. Voting for Kamala Harris is highly unlikely to advance the goal of pro-abortion activists at all. Harris says she would veto a national abortion ban. A national abortion ban is, first, unlikely to the vanishing point, and second, probably unconstitutional. Trump has also implied that he would not support a national abortion ban. Have the all-abortion Harris voters read the Dobbs decision? Almost certainly not. Do they understand that it would take an unprecedented shift in the composition of the Supreme Court to make that decision’s overturning possible, and that even then such a result would be, again, unlikely to the vanishing point? Nah. They just want to be able to kill unborn babies.
In the New York Times today, Cecile Richards, a former president of Planned Parenthood, cheers on the single-issue pro-abortion voter, [that’s a gift link, getting you past the pay wall] which makes sense, since her whole career has been devoted to helping women rid themselves of the unfortunate innocent lives they created. It’s a revealing piece. She dishonestly frames the issue, “Whom do you trust to make medical decisions — women and their doctors, or Donald Trump and JD Vance?” Trump and Vance at this point have no input into the abortion controversy. Moreover, the issue isn’t “medical decisions,” but the legality of ending the lives of nascent human beings. If the pro-abortion position was as virtuous and reasonable as its advocates say it is, then they would not resort to cover-words, euphemisms and misleading framing to obscure what they are talking about. Richards is schizophrenic on this point. She salutes Harris because “she doesn’t shy away from using the word ‘abortion’ or trot out tired political rhetoric. Then she says that Harris “talks about these issues the way millions of Americans understand them: in terms of freedom, health and family.” Freedom? What about the rights of the unborn? “Health”? How is killing a human being healthy? “Family”? Excising an inconvenient family member before he or she is born is being pro-family? If that’s how “millions of Americans” understand abortion, it is only because they have been brainwashed with misleading propaganda.
Because the pro-abortion advocate probably realizes that her support for Harris based on abortion is intellectually dishonest, she has another unethical reason to vote against Trump: revenge. “Hold him accountable for the suffering caused by overturning Roe,” she writes. And the suffering of the millions of unborn killed in the wake of Roe v. Wade? True to her breed and creed, Richards doesn’t acknowledge the victims of abortion in her screed in any way.
What a way to pick a President.
The Dixiecrats (formally the States Rights Party) was a break-away group from the Democrats, devoted to denying the rights of black Americans like the pro-abortion Democrats today deny the right to life of the unborn. The movement was officially dead after the 1948 election, but its mission was no more unethical and self-evidently wrong than that of the pro-abortion absolutists today, and while the Southern racists wanted to maintain the enforcement mechanisms of Jim Crow, like lynching, they did not want to kill all of those their party was targeting.
I think a case can be made that voters like Richards are, in fact, more unethical than the Dixiecrat voters. It’s certainly close.
Ethics Alarms 
Speaking of abortion “in terms of freedom, health and family” is absurd and right up there with “war is peace, freedom is slavery, and ignorance is strength” pure Orwellian propaganda. These totalitarian imbeciles have absolutely no problem lying straight in everyone face to achieve their goals.
Remember; “War is peace, freedom is slavery, and ignorance is strength”.
The ends justify the means.
“Health”? How is killing a human being healthy?
There are about 900,000 *elective* abortions per year in the US. Those murders were of healthy children in the process of normal pregnancies.What in Lord’s name could tha possibly do with health?If I was Trump, I would explicitly reject abortion bans, while calling out abortion for what it actually is, and that until voters stop being in denial of that fact, some tolerance of abortion, while morally indefensible, is what sometimes happens in a representative republic.
Bingo!
jeffguinn wrote, “Those murders…”
Be careful when framing abortion arguments. Murder is a legal term and is defined as “the unlawful killing of a human being with malice”. Since abortion has been and is still legal in some states, then “murder” is literally not the correct word to use in this application. It’s only literally correct to use the word murder when it’s an unlawful killing. The correct words to use in abortion arguments are kill, exterminate, annihilate, slaughter, eradicate, etc, etc.
It’s very important to not misuse the word “murder” in arguments about abortion.
I hang my head in shame.
jeffguinn wrote, “I hang my head in shame.”
Absolutely not, jeffguinn!
I think I have provided that exact information at least a hundred times in comments across the internet. We live, we learn.
I can’t count how many times I’ve been corrected right here on Ethics Alarms. There ain’t a one of us that’s beyond such things.
Now you know and that’s what counts. 🙂
So, slaves that were legally killed by their masters were not murdered. Jews killed by the Nazis weren’t murdered. The Kulaks weren’t murdered by Stalin. The Chinese who died during vivisections by the Japanese weren’t murdered.
There are a lot of laws in the world. Just because one group makes a killing legal doesn’t mean that it doesn’t violate a different law. The group that adheres to the latter law would still view the killing as murder.
Michael R.
In my opinion, I think you’re extrapolating what I wrote to absurdity.
Why? When we look at the Holocaust, people often frame it with the number of people murdered. People refer to slaves murdered by their masters or people murdered by the police even though those didn’t violate the law. You may not realize that there are a lot of people who view abortion the same way. You can say it isn’t murder because the government made it legal, but you are not going to convince them that such an immoral killing isn’t murder.
Peter Singer has suggested that abortion be expanded to children up to 2 years of age. California’s laws can be reasonably interpreted to allow abortion some days or weeks after birth (perinatal). There are a lot of people who are going to view that as murder and they aren’t going to allow the state to tell them it isn’t.
Michael R.,
With all due respect, I think you’re rationalizing the use of the word murder. Just because people literally misuse words and people basically understand what they are saying doesn’t mean that it’s correct usage of the word.
I think Steve was combining both sarcasm and lexical correctness.
He is right — usually I used “homicide” in referring to abortion because that is exactly what it is. Don’t know why I used “murder” that time, but it was certainly the wrong word choice.
It IS kind of pathetic that the right to destroy an unborn child is paramount in so many women’s lives, or at least appears to be. The fact is that women want the right to have sex without awkward, potentially life-altering consequences. The fact is also that sex is a driving force in a lot of people’s lives, unless you are a celibate member of the clergy. You are absolutely right that this does absolutely nothing to better this nation’s position in the world.
However, let’s face it, when you are getting ready for sex you could care less about anything about getting yourself inside this woman and dropping your goo. She could also care less about anything other than getting you inside her and climaxing. However, when it’s all over, she wants what you have, the ability to walk away. In fact, the saying is that you don’t pay a prostitute for sex, you pay her to leave when it’s over. The women could care less about America’s position in the world, they are more concerned with not having THEIR world turned upside down. And if it means higher taxes, or open borders, or that they have to cut back on eating and travel because the price of fuel and subsequently the price of everything else is up, they don’t give a damn. It’s more important to them that they don’t have to be under the weather for 9 months and then deal with a child they don’t even want.
Admittedly, the choice of whether to have a child or not is about the most personal decision anyone can make. Of course, the choice of whether or not to engage in the acts that put you at risk of producing a child is also a very personal decision. Women don’t want to address that issue, though. As far as they are concerned a pregnancy is something that concerns only them, and that only they should have any decision-making power over. A lot of them would just as soon that men just kept their mouths shut about it, but then again, a lot of them would just as soon that men just kept their mouths shut about everything except to agree with them and obey them. Just leave them alone and bring home the check, and they’ll tell you everything else.
Other than your last two sentences which are showing a bit of contempt for women, here’s a relevant opinion regarding the responsibilities of sex…
Abortion should NOT be a political issue, it’s a human right to life issue.
It’s more important to them that they don’t have to be under the weather for 9 months and then deal with a child they don’t even want.
Many of them did not object to the COVID-19 vaccine mandates merely because it was about huring their political enemies- nevermind the vaccine’s effect on a woman’s future ability to bear children has still not yet been measured.
The need for an abortion is preventable. There are medications and devices readily available to allow one to engage in sex without having to worry about ever needing an abortion. Why do we have to put up with those who think that “control of their bodies” begins with a positive pregnancy test.
And… thee is no power allowed to Congress that includes regulating abortion. So any law they might conjure up would be unconstitutional. That power is assigned “to the States, or to the People”. If the state where you live does not allow unfettered abortion, and you cannot live with that, you need to move to a state where the abortion laws fit your needs. It’s just that easy. If moving is too big a hassle for you, maybe you need to re-order your priorities regarding abortion.
When a comic says it all…
Our society needs to be a lot better at teaching, promoting and demanding individual responsibility.
Whom do you trust to make medical decisions — women and their doctors, or Donald Trump and JD Vance?”
FJB wanted to make the medical decisions of women.
If this is so important to women why are they not petitioning to get a state constitutional amendment on the ballot. Dobbs makes it impossible for Congress or a president to make it legal or illegal nationwide.
900,000 elective abortions in a year. That would have been a lot of voters eighteen years from now. Were they all going to vote Republican? Being the children of abortion fanatics, you’d think they’d have grown up to be good Democrats. This is unprecedented: a voter demographic the Dems don’t want to go after.
Ironically, I think lots of well-to-do and college educated white women voters (THE key Democrat demographic) think all black women need the indispensable right to have an abortion in order to better their lives and escape from the tyranny imposed upon them by black guys. It’s a genocide happening among blacks, supported by whites. The spirit of Margaret Sanger is alive and well. Condescending liberal paternalism writ large verging on “control the Negro population.” It is eugenics dressed up as “freedom to choose.”
This argument is not convincing since you’re starting with the belief abortion is murder. Not everyone believes that.
Sean
The post did not use the term “murder.” It used the term “killing.” There is no legitimate argument that abortion isn’t a killing, and those “who don’t believe that” are denying a fact they can’t cope with. Someone who denies that abortion involved the ending of a human life isn’t dealing honestly with the ethics conflict abortion involves. It easy not to be persuaded of a position when you refuse to acknowledge the existence of the facts central to that position. Defenders of slavery refused to accept that blacks were human beings. Same principle.
Oh well! My apologies let me rephrase then.
This argument is not convincing since you’re starting with the belief that abortion is killing unborn children. Not everyone believes that.
This isn’t a “fact” and just because you say it is doesn’t make it so. Nor does it make a convincing case for your position. You’re committing the proof by assertion fallacy.
There is no legitimate argument that abortion isn’t a killing
There is actually! Not one I would think you would find convincing though.
sean
When the baby becomes a baby is most certainly the point of this discussion. Somewhere between impregnation and birth is the spectrum. Having 50 states that come to conclusions allows society to find a middle ground.
Compromise is an equality of dissatisfaction of all parties. The father the mother and the baby are all interested parties, ignoring any of these three is immoral and unethical.
Legality is how society literally makes the Solomonic decision to split the baby.
I don’t have the number of pregnancies from rape. incest, etc are but it is certainlhy a small percentage and laws based on edge cases are almost always bad laws.
When the baby becomes a baby is most certainly the point of this discussion.
It is absolutely not the point.
Abortion ends a life. That is the point.
jeffguinn wrote, “Abortion ends a life.”
In my opinion, jeffguinn is absolutely correct.
The end result of pro-choice (aka abortion) is literally death.
The end result of pro-life is literally life.
If there is one, you are obligated to make it. If you can’t or don’t, you’re an intellectually dishonest fraud. Go ahead, tell me your legitimate argument that ending the life of a unique human being isn’t a killing.
You have 24 hours…starting…NOW.
It isn’t a question of if there is a human right to life, and that ending a human life is or isn’t killing. The argument is about when an embryo or a fetus becomes “human life”
One argument is that having an abortion the day after you find out you’re pregnant, isn’t killing a human since a fetus or embryo isn’t a human life.
People disagree on when it becomes a human life.
sean
It’s alive, and it is unquestionably human. These are not debatable. The question is when (if ever), as a matter of societal policy, it is acceptable to rate that human life as having less inherent right to exist than any other. That’s the core issue. But it doesn’t change the fact that a human life is at stake in every abortion decision.
Look, I already acknowledged you weren’t going to find the argument convincing but people do not agree that an embryo or fetus is a “human life” or a “human” at all. Nor do they believe the embryo or fetus has a right to life since they don’t even believe it’s a human life to begin with.
And you can’t prove it is, and they can’t prove it’s not. That’s why there needs to be a compromise.
sean
First off, people refuse to believe that a fetus is human life, not because medical evidence doesn’t exist, but rather because they simply will NOT believe it for the sake of killing unborn children…but that’s actually tangential.
In my state, abortion becomes illegal when a heartbeat is detectable. That is NOT satisfactory to me because when an egg and sperm meet, the resulting “thing” has everything it needs to live and function…it just needs to get bigger. And it does over the course of about nine months, which means it’s living.
Our state law is a compromise position, to be sure. But once a heartbeat is detected, even pro-choice advocates with their desire to butcher other people’s progeny can’t really argue the point, because there is no longer any ambiguity. What has a heartbeat has life.
So Sean, would you support that law?
Joel Mundt wrote, “when an egg and sperm meet, the resulting “thing” has everything it needs to live and function…”
That’s a factually incorrect statement. The simple correction is that the “resulting thing” MUST implant itself into the wall of the uterus before it has everything it needs to live and function.
I think you’ll find most of the anti-abortion crowd here is fully aware that the pro-abortion crowd refuses to acknowledge that the living human being is either living or human.
But until they recognize that, it must be repeated in all it’s severity. There can be no further argument to convince a person who *refuses* to see what’s obvious. At this point, it’s what we would call a “heart problem” not an academic exercise.
It is so, so clear that the “it’s not human” and “not alive” arguments were devised to make abortion defensible, an after the fact rationalization to argue away inconvenient reality. An intellectually honest approach would be: OK, we have this developing human being in a transitional state on the way to being born.It’s human, it’s alive—is there a reasonable argument for not giving it the full protection of our laws like any other human being? If so, when does it earn full protection, and is that answer based on science or pragmatism?
Yes, I’m merely stating that, at this point, refusal to accept the obvious facts that, indeed, the unborn human life is indeed a human life, is the same as someone refusing to accept that the sky is blue and that the earth rotates towards the east.
It takes emotional pigheadedness to continue in the denial versus *self evident* truths. I cannot invent an argument even further beyond basic obvious premises to convince someone that 2+2=4 if I’ve already shown them two apples and two apples and helped them count to 4 with the apples.
They’re emotionally bound at that point. All I can do is keep repeating self evident truths and gruesome implications of ignoring those truths until their heart changes.
“If so, when does it earn full protection, and is that answer based on science or pragmatism?“
You cannot base the final conclusion on hard science. Hard science informs absolutely NO values. Science can only inform us of circumstances to which we must apply our values.
Science tells us unborn humans are indeed alive and human. Science doesn’t tell us that unborn humans deserve protection. Only our values can do that.
The alternative you pose – pragmatism – also can’t be a stand alone filter to strain out a solution. Pragmatism may be a component of the value system which we use to come to the conclusion of how and when to protect unborn babies – but it isn’t the only component.
But how is this any different from the argument for slavery?
Many, if not most, proponents of slavery literally believed that black people were sub human and not deserving of the same rights as humans.
And black people are human by the same scientific principals that determine that fetuses are also human.
So if one side of a debate does not acknowledge reality (that fetuses are unborn humans and blacks are fully human), then there can be no real debate. Just people who so strongly do not want to face the truth that they have convinced themselves of obvious lies.
Look, I’m not a hard-liner when it comes to abortion. At all. I think it’s sad, but I understand the strong desire for it to be legal.
But it is, as Jack says, a question of competing priorities–the life of what is essentially a parasite (but a human parasite!) for 9 months over the freedom and potential health of his or her host. Ignoring that fact and pretending that the fetus is the equivalent to a fingernail is disingenuous to the extreme.
In general, if you are prepared to deny the humanity of the unborn, you better have very good compelling reasoning to back that up. If pro-life advocates are wrong, and the fetus isn’t a human person until some line, then by prohibiting abortion they inconvenience (sometimes very painfully) people. If pro-choice advocates are wrong, and the fetus is a human person from the moment of conception, then all those human lives that have been denied their very basic right of life. The weight of the injustice of the latter requires compelling reasoning to demonstrate that abortion up to some certain point is not causing an injustice.
Most pro-choice apologists who get on stage and debate the issue grant that the unborn are distinct living human organisms from the moment of conception (or thereabouts, with some quibble over the “moment” of conception). The most honest arguments do not deny “human” but focus on “person,” with much deeper philosophical discussions about what makes a person a person, and why one could not call a fetus a “person” until 14 weeks when there is a sufficient nervous system for the beginnings of cognition and awareness. Thus, their argument goes, it is reasonable to allow abortion up until 12 weeks or so, because no person is there to be harmed.
So the question of compromise is not predicated on the simple fact that people disagree. Politics will demand a compromise because politicians are squeamish about dealing with absolutes, especially in this era where the “lived experience” is supposed to triumph over objective truth. But the reality is that once you decide that there’s some line where on one side humans have rights, and on the other they don’t, you have jettisoned the notion that humans have intrinsic worth and inalienable rights.
It seems to me that too many people nowadays are more than happy to declare human don’t have intrinsic worth or inalienable rights, and that is a huge problem.
Those are some outstanding thoughts, Ryan. Thanks!!
The most honest arguments do not deny “human” but focus on “person,” with much deeper philosophical discussions about what makes a person a person …
I agree, those are the most honest arguments, but they make a fundamental category mistake: the focus on personhood is about becoming; abortion is about ending.Focusing on “person” is completely miss what is at stake.
Jeff, that is true. I was mostly trying to demonstrate that one could add a little more context to “some people disagree”, which is frustratingly vague, insipid, and lazy.
Insisting on a compromise just because parties disagree is likewise lazy, because it is the analysis that provides to what degree a compromise could or should be made. It also has me wanting to taunt back, “Fine, let’s declare the unborn 3/5 of a human.”
Sean,
Read this, When is “abortion” not immoral? I wrote that seven years ago, it discusses some of the arguments you appear to be promoting.
By definition, abortion is always homicide.
Life begins at conception. Once having begun, there is only two ways it ends: natural cause, or homicide.
There is no third option.
It is fascinating: dictionary definitions of abortion aid the subterfuge. “Abortion” is defined as ending a “pregnancy.” “Pregnancy” is defined as “carrying a fetus.” “Fetus’ is described as an unborn offspring. “Human offspring” are children. This abortion means ending the life of an unborn child.
Here is what the definition of abortion should be: A premeditated homicide occurring in a womb.
So?
Then please tell us in you wisdom: Is aborting a healthy fetus the day before it’s due date, killing?
This was in reply to Sean, above. WordPress UI is even worse in mobile.
I’d think so yes.
sean
So, then, here is one thing that is just infuriating. You ask people the question, “Should abortion be allowed in the 9th month? In the 8th month?” and they won’t answer the question.
By refusing to answer that question, one has to presume that you think abortion should be allowed up until the baby actually emerges from the womb.
From what I’ve seen, probably at least 90% of Americans, likely more, think that abortion should not be legal that late in the pregnancy (for a healthy child).
So why do so many politicians refuse to draw this line? It is not like we would think that, if they oppose abortions in the 9th month, they automatically want to ban all abortions.
If you cannot answer the simplest questions, how are you going to do on the hard ones?
I was looking over the New Atheists’ views and philosophy now that Richard Dawkins has come out as a ‘cultural Christian’. The New Atheists view and effect on society has had a definite impact on what we are seeing.
The New Atheists state that religion is the cause of hatred, wars, bigotry, etc in the world. If we can get rid of religion, people will become more rational and more scientific. Their target is almost exclusively Christianity, so we can state that their position was that Christianity and its beliefs are the cause of hatred, wars, bigotry, etc in the world and we can bring about a rational utopia by getting rid of religious values. This view holds that we can create a better society from whole cloth in just a few years or decades.
Their opponents hold that without Christianity, our society would turn to power and pleasure. Some would just try to gain as much power as possible by any means necessary. Might makes right would be the byword. Others would turn all their energies to pleasure and whatever makes them short-term happy.
The New Atheist movement and the secularization that came before it have essentially destroyed Christianity as the basis for our civilization. Judge for yourself, have people turned to rationality and peace, or to power and pleasure? Without Christian values, a human life is only worth as much as the parts will net you on the open market. Without Christianity, oppression and enslavement of the weak is normal and maybe even good. As Peter Singer, Ezekiel Emmanual, and the Obamacare team behind the ‘whole life plan’ have said, children are only worth what you have spent on their upkeep and education to that point, the elderly are only worth the value of their taxes paid in minus the government benefits they are drawing. We see this playing out horrifically in Canada right now with MAID. The concept that human life has intrinsic value is not rational, it isn’t logical. It is a belief that society took from Christianity.
It IS kind of pathetic that the right to destroy an unborn child is paramount in so many women’s lives, or at least appears to be.
I am going to try and steel-woman the pro-choice argument.
Women are equal to men. Differences are down to arbitrary socialization. Women are entitled to the same autonomy as men, as any limits on their autonomy constitutes oppression. Pregnancy, because it affects only women, is one form of oppression. Women cannot be free if they cannot choose whether to continue a pregnancy.
Further, deciding when a fetus becomes a person is inherently a religious conclusion. To ban abortion because a fetus is a person at the moment of conception is an imposition of religion. Laws prohibiting abortion, by definition, violate the first amendment.
I think I have that mostly right, and haven’t left anything important out.
It is unfortunate that the most vocal opponents of abortion have been the religious. Not because they are wrong, but rather that their opposition to abortion is based upon a religious belief that ensoulment occurs at conception.
That is irrelevant.
The moral and logical argument against abortion is predicated on exactly two things: when life begins, and how it ends.
Viewed from that perspective, religious belief and feminist orthodoxy are orthogonal to the issue.
The religious reach the same conclusion that a logically and philosophically internally coherent argument does.
In contrast, the feminist based pro-choice position starts at a fundamental incomprehension and proceeds from there to a festival of contradictions and indefensible conclusions, the listing of which will be left as an at-home exercise.
What do you think of the fact that anti-abortion laws are preventing hospitals from treating women who have had miscarriages? Is that not something to consider?
https://x.com/SenWarren/status/1836034800135688323
Michael,
There’s two responses I have without knowing any specifics to which Sen. Warren is referring.
First, there are overzealous people who will take a law and push it far beyond either its letter or intent. I see two broad categories in this case. In the first are the zealous anti-abortion advocates who are so focused on avoiding anything that at first glance could be construed as an abortion that they’re willing to reject patients in genuine need to ensure nothing remotely close to an abortion is permitted. In the second category are the zealous pro-abortion crowd who think they are enacting malicious compliance with the law, and will force women to bleed out in the parking lot because “the law.”
Second, there are bad laws written, and any genuinely bad laws should be replaced with better ones. That being said, I’ve heard numerous arguments from abortion advocates that if one were to prohibit all abortions, then every miscarriage would have to be investigated as a potential homicide. I think this is an absurd conclusion, but then, I’m not a lawyer and I’ve been repeatedly amazed reading judicial conclusions on how nuanced interpretation of the law can really be. However, it seems to me that with some verbiage, it should be easily possible to draw distinct lines with sufficient nuance that the laws do not trap health care providers into untenable situations, while still prohibiting abortions.
For my personal response to Sen. Warren, I can only imagine that the cases where a miscarrying woman is denied service are less frequent than the complications of a botched abortion. I think the entire tweet is geared towards creating outrage, not decent public policy. As a Senator, that is wildly irresponsible.
Now, Michael, if you have more context to provide, we might be able to discuss this problem in greater detail.
See this tweet.
https://x.com/KamalaHarris/status/1836225824510324818?t=3v-pAK6afYm5iJgngeKtbA&s=19
How can any law regulating the practice of medicine be justified, if doctors are afraid.to provide necessary medical treatment for fear of prosecution?
Michael,
This still leaves us in the very first question Jack would have us ask when examining situations ethically. What is going on here? I have no details on this case, nor the time to try to track down what Kamala is taking about, and whether this is the same case that Warren was referring to in the previous tweet you linked.
In general, the information I have come across again suggests what I wrote above. Bad laws need tweaked, and overzealous people need to stop twisting the law.
One thing I would look at is how these laws were enforced pre-Roe.
Above, Ryan used the term “malicious compliance”. I don’t know any details, but it is entirely possible that ardent pro-choice medical professionals could use beyond literal compliance with a law as a means to undermine it.Abortion is homicide, by definition. However, some homicides are justifiable — self-defense to prevent imminent personal injury or death at the hands of another. Some, very few, abortions are legitimate self-defense. Idaho, where I live, has probably the most restrictive abortion law in the US. As written, an abortion was only permissible to save the life of the mother. A subsequent ID supreme court decision widened that to include abortions presenting a medical emergency.In other words, pretty much like self-defense law.