“We have the right to kill anything that doesn’t possess the ability to ask us not to...”
If a fetus could say, “Mommy, please don’t, that hurts...” would we even be arguing about abortion?
Bill Mitchell - 10:11pm on 11/04/2007
If a fetus could say, “Mommy, please don’t, that hurts...” would we even be arguing about abortion?
No. If a cow could say, “Fuckface, please don’t, that hurts...” would we even be arguing about vegetarianism?
Dave - 11:11am on 11/05/2007
A constitutional amendment would enshrine the right of the unborn for all states, and if Fred really thought that life began at conception this would be something he’d support.
Rob,
Not necessarily. Acknowledging, as Thompson does, that abortion is wrong and that our approach to the question ought to be changed, is not to say that the constitutional amendment you propose is the proper answer.
The fact that the federal budget is out of balance and the government is running a deficit is not to say that raising taxes is the proper response. Similarly, the fact that we know that UBL and the rest of al Qaeda’s high level leadership are holed up in northern Waziristan does not mean that the correct answer is to blanket the area with a barrage of tactical nuclear weapons.
Thompson’s point is that our federal system argues against a constitutional amendment for issue specific questions of public policy. We tried that once with Prohibition.
The basic presumption of humanity is this:
“We have the right to kill anything that doesn’t possess the ability to ask us not to...”
If a fetus could say, “Mommy, please don’t, that hurts...” would we even be arguing about abortion?
No. If a cow could say, “Fuckface, please don’t, that hurts...” would we even be arguing about vegetarianism?
Rob,
Not necessarily. Acknowledging, as Thompson does, that abortion is wrong and that our approach to the question ought to be changed, is not to say that the constitutional amendment you propose is the proper answer.
The fact that the federal budget is out of balance and the government is running a deficit is not to say that raising taxes is the proper response. Similarly, the fact that we know that UBL and the rest of al Qaeda’s high level leadership are holed up in northern Waziristan does not mean that the correct answer is to blanket the area with a barrage of tactical nuclear weapons.
Thompson’s point is that our federal system argues against a constitutional amendment for issue specific questions of public policy. We tried that once with Prohibition.