Wednesday, December 15, 2004

A Global Test

My take on choice and anti-choice begins with a scenario---
A woman is going to die if she carries her pregnancy to term.

You would:
  1. Let her die
  2. Let her terminate the pregnancy if she chooses to
Understand, you don't get to add qualifiers. She will die if she can't end the pregnancy.

If you picked 1, you chose the pro-choice side. It's that simple. If you believe that at any point during a pregnancy the woman's life should take precedence, you are making the decision that her life is worth more and should therefore be saved. If you can make that distinction, the arguments of the anti-choice side must fail.

If you believe an embryo is a human life invested with full personhood from the moment of conception, then to maintain that position you must concede that its life is not less valuable than that of the woman carrying it.

At any time. Under any circumstances.

The logical conclusion of this line of thought is that a choice between lives cannot be made, and God or nature must make the decision as to whether one, or both, will live or die. If you truly line up with this camp, you, or I, or she, cannot make that decision because it would mean playing God.

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