Theos-Talk Archives (March 2003 Message tt00015)

Steve Stubbs wrote:
> --- In theos-talk@yahoogroups.com, Bart Lidofsky <bartl@s...> wrote:
>
> > 	Straw man argument. Invalid.
You are giving arguments that have nothing to do with the actual 
arguments given, and then knocking down the phony arguments.

Fact is, if you read Roe vs. Wade carefully, the issue is not at all 
simple. It is not even about a right to abortion. It is about rights in 
conflict, and determining which right is greater, or, more precisely, 
which right is the government required to recognize. The fetus has a 
right to live which is something less than or equal to the right of a 
child who has already been born. The mother has a right to have the 
fetus removed which is less than or equal to her right to an emergency 
appendectomy.

In the case of abortion, the mother is being used as a human life 
support machine for the fetus. There is no case where a person is 
required to be a human life support machine (donating blood or organs, 
for example) to someone who has already been born. But there is also the 
case of responsibility, which would go against abortion. The Supreme 
Court in Roe vs. Wade essentially said that the state was legally 
incapable of making the decision until the 3rd trimester. (note that 
this also means that, should a reliable method of fetus transplant or 
artificial wombs be developed, the right of abortion will no longer be 
the same thing as right to kill the fetus).

There is also a difference between a religious and a philosophical 
position; you represent the position of the Catholic Church as 
religious, when it is in fact a philosophical one (when does life begin? 
At what point does a fetus become a human being?).

Bart Lidofsky