She may support first-trimester abortion but"
OK, now substitute any other human rights atrocity in that sentence and see how it sounds, DJ.
Try "slavery" or "Jew gassing," and see if the rest of your sentence seems reasonable.
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She may support people's rights to decide what happens to their body after they have died.
Yup, works pretty well; it sounds perfectly reasonable.
You can't take organs to save several people's lives from a deceased body without prior-death consent.
You also shouldn't be able to force a woman to be incubator to a lump of cells that might be born a human being in nine months.
Perfectly valid challenge. In the case of the Jews, the current consensus is that there was no legitimate social benefit - the perceived benefits were illusions based on irrational racism - and the only real benefit was a political one for the Nazis, and we generally don't rate political benefit as sufficient reason for genocide.
Slavery is a more difficult one, as there are clear collective economic benefits, especially at the local level if the slaves come from other areas. The glory of Rome would not have been possible without slaves. However in a modern individual rights based society with mechanical alternatives to human labour, those benefits are, in most parts of the world (save Mauritania I think), no longer considered sufficient to outweigh the loss of personal freedom.
Finally abortion. Here the main benefit is the emancipation of women and their participation in society as equals. This can only occur if women are allowed the opportunity to effectively control their own fertility. Until birth-control becomes simple and infallible, the only way to do that is through a limited right to abortion. In my view this is a worthy goal, and the future of humanity - humanity has always advanced when it adds greater numbers to those actively able to participate socially, economically, and politically. It also assists in my view (but is certainly not determinative) that the child's life taken in pursuit of this goal is never aware of its own existence, and never suffers to any material degree. Hopefully, like slavery, technological advances (contraception, early detection of pregnancy, artificial gestation etc.) will mean some day abortion can me more and more limited and finally eradicated altogether.
Try this: all you 'Pro-Lifers' looking after all the unwanted babies in the world: the only posible way you'll get what you want: abortion made illegal worldwide.
But you can only do this on your own, with no help - certainly financial - from anyone else; all new additions as & when they're available shared out equally between you lot.
...oh, and there's a couple of catches: 1) If just one of you 'Pro-Lifers' so much as thinks about complaining about your childcare 'burden', then the whole deal's off, and abortion is made legal worldwide in perpetuity. Also, sterilisation of all you fundie Christain 'Pro-Lifers' becomes compulsory; and consider yourselves fucking lucky that the procedure is performed under anaesthetic .
And 2) If so much as one woman dies due to birth complications - who could've been saved by an abortion - then ten 'Pro-Life' fundies are chosen at random to be publicly executed & on worldwide TV on all channels (and viewing by fundie 'Pro-Lifers' is compulsory , natch); the first among that ten would include you .
...or is that too un reasonable, WGC?!
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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