We don't like to kill our unborn; we need them to grow up and fight our wars.
Marilyn MansonStichwörter: war america abortion
An imaginary circle of empathy is drawn by each person. It circumscribes the person at some distance, and corresponds to those things in the world that deserve empathy. I like the term "empathy" because it has spiritual overtones. A term like "sympathy" or "allegiance" might be more precise, but I want the chosen term to be slightly mystical, to suggest that we might not be able to fully understand what goes on between us and others, that we should leave open the possibility that the relationship can't be represented in a digital database.
If someone falls within your circle of empathy, you wouldn't want to see him or her killed. Something that is clearly outside the circle is fair game. For instance, most people would place all other people within the circle, but most of us are willing to see bacteria killed when we brush our
teeth, and certainly don't worry when we see an inanimate rock tossed aside to keep a trail clear.
The tricky part is that some entities reside close to the edge of the circle. The deepest controversies often involve whether something or someone should lie just inside or just outside the circle. For instance, the idea of slavery depends on the placement of the slave outside the circle, to make some people nonhuman. Widening the circle to include all people and end slavery has been one of the epic strands of the human story - and it isn't quite over yet.
A great many other controversies fit well in the model. The fight over abortion asks whether a fetus or embryo should be in the circle or not, and the animal rights debate asks the same about animals.
When you change the contents of your circle, you change your conception of yourself. The center of the circle shifts as its perimeter is changed. The liberal impulse is to expand the circle, while conservatives tend to want to restrain or even contract the circle.
Empathy Inflation and Metaphysical Ambiguity
Are there any legitimate reasons not to expand the circle as much as possible?
There are.
To expand the circle indefinitely can lead to oppression, because the rights of potential entities (as perceived by only some people) can conflict with the rights of indisputably real people. An obvious example of this is found in the abortion debate. If outlawing abortions did not involve commandeering control of the bodies of other people (pregnant women, in this case), then there wouldn't be much controversy. We would find an easy accommodation.
Empathy inflation can also lead to the lesser, but still substantial, evils of incompetence, trivialization, dishonesty, and narcissism. You cannot live, for example, without killing bacteria. Wouldn't you be projecting your own fantasies on single-cell organisms that would be indifferent to them at best? Doesn't it really become about you instead of the cause at that point?
Stichwörter: empathy liberal abortion slavery conservative circle-of-empathy
Militant feminists are pro‐choice because it’s their ultimate avenue of power over men. And believe me, to them it is a question of power. It is their attempt to impose their will on the rest of society, particularly on men.
Rush LimbaughStichwörter: feminism abortion ignorant
I cannot understand anti-abortion arguments that centre on the sanctity of life. As a species we've fairly comprehensively demonstrated that we don't believe in the sanctity of life. The shrugging acceptance of war, famine, epidemic, pain and life-long poverty shows us that, whatever we tell ourselves, we've made only the most feeble of efforts to really treat human life as sacred.
Caitlin MoranStichwörter: life feminism abortion
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After listening to Rick Santorum, I'm now for late-term abortions (say up to age 53).
Quentin R. BufogleStichwörter: abortion women-s-rights birth-control presidential-election rick-santorum
Conception is the beginning of human life. From the time that an ovum is fertilized a new life begins that is neither that of the father nor of the mother. It is rather the life of a new human being with his own growth. It would never become human if it were not human already.
~ Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Declaration on Procured Abortion, 1974Stichwörter: abortion
You can't really protect women or men from their choices, so let them
have their own lives and trust the process. Given the history of
society's efforts to control women's sexuality and reproduction, this
remained a revolutionary idea. No wonder it disturbed and frightened
some people so deeply.
Stichwörter: abortion women-s-rights pro-choice
As with Randall Terry and other anti-abortion leaders, women simply
did not figure into [Roeder's] equations. If all the abortion
providers were dead, the problem would be solved, and he'd never have
to think about those who sought to end their pregnancies through
illegal or dangerous means.
Stichwörter: abortion women-s-rights pro-choice
Roe has been a good friend, one women could count on when in trouble. We are on uncertain ground after Casey. Women, justifiably, feel vulnerable at a time so many years after their journey for reproductive freedom started.
Sarah WeddingtonStichwörter: abortion women-s-rights pro-choice roe-v-wade
[] it is unthinkable to allow complete strangers, whether individually or collectively as state legislators or others in government, to make such personal decisions for someone else.
Sarah WeddingtonStichwörter: abortion women-s-rights pro-choice
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