[Peace-discuss] abortion rights argument

[Siobhan Higgins Kolar]

Hello - I couldn't resist opening the abortion notes. 
I agree w/Carl. 

As a grad of U of I I can unfortunately say that college women esp places like of U of I where achievement is so important to kids and parents that abortions are very common and no one ends up feeling liberated. 

But more importantly - 

re Ricky B. analogy - 


sex is not quite the same as falling asleep. is it 

I have to fall asleep. I don't have a "choice." 

I do have a choice, usually 
a. whether or not to have sex 

and usually whether or not 
b. to use birth control. 


Even if those things are taken away (worst case) the last part doesn't hold - 

who except a character in a Jodi Picoult novel or a sex crime victim will discover 

"to her horror" that she is pregnant.? 


Siobhan Kolar 

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "John Fettig" <john.fettig at gmail.com> 
To: "Ricky Baldwin" <baldwinricky at yahoo.com> 
Cc: peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net 
Sent: Monday, March 30, 2009 1:20:45 PM GMT -06:00 US/Canada Central 
Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] abortion rights argument 

Ricky, 

On Sun, Mar 29, 2009 at 8:47 PM, Ricky Baldwin <baldwinricky at yahoo.com> wrote: 
> Consider a person who wakes up one day in a hospital bed with another person 
> lying in the same bed. The other person is sleeping. Upon inspection, the 
> first person discovers to her horror that the second person is attached to 
> her by a bundle of tubes and cords of various sizes and shapes. It turns 
> out the other person cannot live without her, at least for a number of 
> months, and even separating the two (prematurely) will result in death of 
> the other. Allowing the attachment to remain could cause death to the first 
> person, but the doctors say there is not a huge chance of that in today's 
> hospitals. 

Does the ethics of this scenario change if you start the story this way: 

You are driving in your car, and run a red light. The person you run 
into is hurt badly, and you are unconscious. The doctors determine 
that the only way for the person you hit to survive is the bundle of 
tubes you describe, and so they implement this while you are out. 

> However there is a safe, clean, legal alternative, not too awfully 
> expensive, that will terminate the connection and the other person's life. 

I want to point out that being (safe, clean, legal, cheap) is not a 
precondition for being ethical. 

John 
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