Quote:
Originally Posted by rubecube
How does it not make sense? If my concern is the personal, social, and economic well-being of women, then these measures should concern me. My concern for women as a group doesn't preclude me from concerns about other groups or individuals, nor does it preclude me from seeing this as an infringement on individual liberties.
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Because it entails that the reason women should be permitted to have abortions is
because they are women - that there's something specific to women that grants them this right inherently (or as a necessary result of some other right granted to women inherently owing to their sex). The rational answer is that a right to abortion flows from other more fundamental principles that apply to everyone regardless of their identity or membership in a subgroup of humanity. There
are no rights that should accrue to anyone as a result of their sex. There's no reasonable basis for saying that identity
matters to our conclusion that pro-choice is the right place to stand here.
It's not a matter of being concerned about two things at the same time. It's about looking at the issue - should we permit legal abortion or should we outlaw it - and asking, "why are we in favour of legal abortion?" There's no reasonable answer to that question that anyone has put forward yet as to why the right to have an abortion is derived solely from a group identity; from women's status
as women.
The fact that women are the only ones in the position to
avail themselves of this instantiation of the more fundamental principles of self-determination and control over one's own body (and by the way I'm open to the possibility that that list isn't exhaustive) is a matter of biology, not morality.