Monday, March 19, 2012

Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada Responds to Woodworth Motion

Repeating the same old crap they've peddled for years.
The major fallacy of the anti-abortion view is the unquestioned assumption that fetuses are "human beings" and therefore deserve rights, even though that is the very question at issue – but one on which there can be no consensus.

As if the recognition of human beings or their inalienable rights is based on consensus.

Whether a fetus is a “human being” in a moral or philosophical sense is necessarily a subjective call and a matter of opinion – one that only a pregnant woman has the prerogative to decide.

(...)

He has said: “Just laws must be based on accurate evidence, not arbitrary lines unrelated to reality. If there’s no objective criteria for who’s a human being, then personhood and the fundamental rights that go with it can be defined in any way any powerful person or group decides.”[26] Woodworth pretends that having personhood start at birth is an “arbitrary line” without “objective criteria”, as if the biological fact that a fetus depends totally on a woman’s body while a newborn does not, is somehow insignificant or even imaginary.

So which is it?

Is the definition of human being objective or subjective?

If it is objective, then what are the defining features of a human being?

If it is subjective, then it is subjective for everyone, including women.

You can`t have it both ways, be subjective for fetuses, but objective for everyone else.

You can tell they never debate these points because they don`t understand how awful they are.

If it's birth makes a human being, then have the courage of your convictions and say what you mean.

If birth does not make a human being, then state what does make a human being.

Don't beat around the bush.