From: howie@athena.mit.edu (Howard D Lewis)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc,talk.abortion,alt.politics.bush
Subject: Re: Another good reason not to vote for Bush
Date: 14 Aug 92 06:04:03 GMT
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology

In article <l8lqguINNrs2@spim.mips.com> mpolen@gelato.mips.com (Michael Polen) writes:
>Tim Buckley) writes:
>|> I wrote:
>|> >|> Tim Buckley) writes:
>|> >|> >
>|> >|> >Sorry Adrienne but again this is simple.  If one believes that the fetus
>|> >|> >is a human being then the issue is clear.  The right to life takes
>|> >|> >precedence over other rights.              ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>|> >|>  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^             
>|> >|> 
>|> >So the death penalty, declaring war on Iraq, all go away.  The right
>|> >to life takes precedence over public safety, economic interests,
>|> >etc.
>|> 
>|> If you had read my preceding posts carefully I don't believe that you
>|> would make this statement.  All my posts dealt with both sides of the
>|> issue and the consistency of the arguments involved depending on which
>|> of two assumptions one chooses to accept.  Giving you the benefit of the
>|> doubt I assume that you wrote this before my clarification was posted.
>|> It was a clarification that I at first deemed unnecessary but it soon
>|> became clear that there was some uncertainty.  In my most recent post I
>|> discussed that the difficulty comes in when the one person's right to
>|> life is butted up against another's. 
>|> 
>|> The two cases you have mentioned are two such instances.  The death
>|> penalty and war both require society to make judgments about whose right
>|> to life takes precedence NOT whether the right to life takes precedence.
>|> Without the right to life there are no other rights.  It is fundamental.
>|> That IS (or should be) why we go to war (to defend our (or others) right
>|> to life) and that is why we have the death penalty (to protect the right
>|> to life of our citizenry).  Consistent and cohesive arguments can be
>|> made in opposition to the death penalty and war this, again, is because
>|> of the difficulty involved when two equal rights juxtapose each other.
>|> 
>But you start your evaluation of consistency by assuming the right to life
>should take precedence, and that only where two rights to life come in 
>conflict is there an issue.  This is an incorrect assumption.  There are,
>for example, religions where "life" is a fleeting part of the existence
>of the spirit, and losing it or giving it up are not a big deal.
>
>Second, you assume that rationality is meaningful in this argument.  But 
>those who are "pro-life" believe that their position is a mandate from 
>God to go out and save the heathens, not to mention the children.  Society
>can only succeed with compromise and the acceptance of others views.  
>"Right-to-Lifer's" don't even consider this a possibility.
>

Don't you think that this is a gross generalization of the position of millions
of people?  It is true that many and maybe most of the people that are pro-life
are religious, but that has no bearing on the correctness of some of their 
arguements.  There are those in the pro-life movement that feel that religion
has only a tangential role in the issue.  
Xref: sparky talk.politics.misc:40585 talk.abortion:32425 alt.politics.bush:2124