Politics:
JoT re Brianna re JoT re Brianna re "Courts"

Brianna—

Unfortunately, I find it hard to take your arguments as authentic. On one hand, your reasoning is strikingly different from reasoning in the right-to-life movement. On the other hand, your conclusions are identical to right-to-life conclusions. If your unusual reasons were genuine, they'd lead to unusual conclusions.

Still, it's OK to float arguments that you don't believe in yourself. I've been known to do it myself. So I'll address your points.

You say abortion is wrong because the fetus's future is valuable to the future child. But anything you can say about an unborn child's future you can also say about an unconceived child's future. The potential future of the unborn child doesn't give the government cause to mandate gestation any more than the potential future of the unconceived child gives the government cause to mandate conception. If you suggested that women should, at least in some circumstances, be forced to conceive children for the sake of those children, I'd believe that your argument was authentic.

You also say abortion is wrong because the father's property rights are violated. If we could protect the father's "property rights" without violating the mother's reproductive rights, I'd be all for it. In my book, a woman's control over her own body trumps a man's control over their unborn child. If you supported abortion when both the mother and father are in favor of it, I'd believe that your argument was authentic.

—JoT
June 2004

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