KR> I appreciated your comments regarding the self-defense KR> reasons why a woman might choose abortion. I don't KR> quite get your point, though. I think of the term self- KR> defense in terms of defending one's life, not ones KR> economic welfare, self-esteem. I think most people KR> think of being able to injure another person only to KR> defend their own life or physical well-being.Sometimes, "economic welfare" and / or "self-esteem" mean the difference between life and death. After all, a lack of economic welfare tends to lead one towards such nasty things as starving to death.....
KR> Regardless, my original point was that a moral person KR> does not kill another person or allow others to do so.Excuse me, Kathleen, but this is not what your original point was. I could agree with your original point, but I cannot agree with this. What you started before was, "A moral person will not kill another human being except in self-defense" and now you say "A moral person will not kill another human being".
Though I have never had an abortion, I have been in the position of making the decision. I know what it is to have every "friend" I thought I had run out on me, because they knew what was best for me and my life and couldn't stand my not taking their advice. I know what it is to have my entire livelihood -- my home, my life -- in jeopardy because I worked for a man who didn't believe women should be pregnant while under his employ. I know what it's like to have the man I thought loved me turn away, because I didn't bend to his will and do as he wanted me to do.
I know what it's like to stop being a person, just because I was pregnant -- because everyone around me stopped seeing ME for nine months, they could see only "the baby". My body they were playing guessing games with, Kathleen. My life they were psychoanalyzing. And not one of them had the foggiest notion of what my life was really all about.
I know what it is to be completely alone. And Kathleen, I wouldn't wish that fate on ANYbody. I'm too humane, too caring for that. I cannot say to my fellow woman, "You must risk this just to save a life". I cannot say to any human being, "You are less important than an embryo which may or may not survive". I cannot say to another human being, "You must forever pay, in the way that *I* think you *should* pay, for making a mistake." I cannot say to a woman, "You're taking the easy way out, and life's not like that" -- because I know that it's not *my* place to judge what's the "easy way" for someone else's life. Especially when I know of no woman who's ever looked forward to an abortion with glee, but many who have faced an abortion with dread and sorrow, with a reluctance acceptance that "This is the only way *I* can survive".
And that's being the most moral, kind, loving person I can be.
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