Daniel Bastiat Well, much of the dispute regarding abortion revolves...
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Daniel Bastiat Well, much of the dispute regarding abortion revolves around the degree to which fetuses are "conscious", when such consciousness appears, and whether it's ethically or legally relevant. Many animals, for example, are "conscious" to some degree. Yet, most humans think it should be legal to kill and eat [some] animals. Vegans disagree. And even many meat eaters aren't logically consistent--many want to ban the eating of companion animals like cats and dogs, but not farm animals like pigs or goats, even though the latter have comparable intelligence and personality to companion animals. On the other hand, many humans have limited consciousness (due to birth defects, disease, stroke, accidents, etc), yet other humans typically aren't allowed to legally execute them. In any case, many pro-choice advocates like Avens support the right to abort healthy fetuses by healthy mothers up through birth. While such late term abortions are rare compared to earlier abortions, they do happen. My argument is regarding the ethics of such abortions, not their frequency. Most women who have abortions aren't in Nazi death camps. Even if it was ethical to perform abortions to help Mengele's prisoners escape torture and death, it doesn't follow that abortions during peacetime are ethical. I think a stronger argument for legal late term abortions is that even if we grant that late term fetuses normally do have the right to live, their rights sometimes come into conflict with those of the mother. My own birth, for example, was quite difficult. My Dad was given the choice between 1) cutting me to pieces so that I could be extracted or 2) proceeding with the birth, with high risk that my Mom would die. He told the docs to kill me, if necessary. Fortunately for me, I was born shortly thereafter. Such decisions are often judgment calls, i.e. there is no "right" decision. IMO, parents and doctors are a) the people with the best information b) the people who have the best incentives to balance the interests of mother and child. Politicians, judges, and cops, on the other hand, don't have great incentives. They're motivated to appease the irrational, stupid, and ignorant voting public. They frequently don't know or care much about the specifics of a given situation. Therefore, parents, in consultation with their doctors, should be the ones to make the call, without fear of reprisal from government bureaucrats.