trustwomen said:
Ack. I'm not up on my Nietzsche, so I googled this.
You are assuming that an insentient fetus which is (by necessity) attached to a woman's body is a "person", first of all. Once a baby is born, of course its life has meaning, and deserves as much of a place in this world as anyone else (you won't find many right-wingers - or Nietzscheans - among pro-choice people). However, if a woman is pregnant - has a fetus inside her uterus - and decides that she is not ready for a child (or another child), what is the morally right thing to do? (This is a separate question to "what can be legally enforced upon her", by the way. Legally, the principle of bodily autonomy ensures that she would have no obligation to donate - or lend - any part of her body in order to benefit another.) I believe that she is morally justified in terminating her pregnancy. Others might not. I'm fine with that, as long as they don't try to impose their opinion on pregnant women. I've counseled women who wanted to keep their babies, where I've personally felt that the situation was an impending trainwreck and an abortion would be better for all concerned... but I've NEVER deigned to tell anyone what they should do, or impose my views on such a personal decision.
I don't support genocide, eugenics, "racial cleansing", or for that matter social darwinism. I'm as much of a soft-hearted lefty (and about as far away from Nietzsche) as you'll ever meet. The argument you cited states that some groups have lost their claim to life. Fetuses never had one in the first place. Jews didn't live inside the bodies of their oppressors.
You must have seen first-trimester embryos, LADoc (which represent 90% of abortions). Can you honestly say that they have a "right" to use someone's body parts against their will? (Hell, even a 7-year-old doesn't have the right to your kidney, or even your blood).
Put aside abortion for one minute here, you touched on a very very VERY interesting question:
Women who choose abortion are doing so because if they didn't, they would be "affecting another life" by bringing into the world unwanted and unprepared-for
The inherent sentiment in your statement above is that if the proper conditions arent met (supportive home life, a mother not on drugs etc), then the life is not worth living. Im not talking eugenics, racial theory, bell curve or any perversion of
lebensunwertes leben that the German political theorists engaged in. [
lebensunwertes leben was never intended to be applied to Jews, gypsies or gays, it was a simple right to die issue presented to Hitler by a medical society. Later on it would be warped and corrupted to fit political goals]
Put that aside, Im asking do you believe that there are some lives simply so horrific, so underpriveleged, so disadvantaged that is better them never to have existed than be born and endure?
This isnt as simple as lefty vs right wing, neocon vs. liberal. That is a BS distinction!! More important is how you answer the question above *There is no right or wrong answer.
Moving on to abortion, not only do you have
lebensunwertes leben but also the Will to Power vs. Will to Live. To you the POWER of choice trumps all, because without power you dont feel fulfilled. Look around, things like 'I am woman, hear me roar' or 'girlpower' are common place in Western civilization. Is abortion a power struggle? Yes, most certainly. All would agree. Once again, Im stating observation not passing judgement. Many, many people including our founding fathers would argue without power, liberty and freedom, it is better to be dead (in essence Nietzsche's Der Wille zur Macht).
People in the Will to Live camp are at the opposite spectrum, feeling life even life lived under oppression, in crappy conditions or even in slavery can be just as satisfying as a life of privelage. (I never really took this philosphy seriously until I read Pauline Reage's Story of O, which I consider one of the greatest books ever written and by a very outspoken French feminist too!).
On one hand you have people who feel the power and liberty are a neccessity and life secondary while on the otherhand, there are people who feel all life has value and that value trumps liberty.
That is unresolvable, there is no compromise. Both sides would kill to protect and impose their views on the opposite camp, the question is who would win?? I like to be on the winning side.