I just wanted to let readers know that not all of my posts are going to be quite as academic as the last one. I will periodically be posting some of my papers which I think most appropriate for this blog, and those may have a bit more verbose or technical language than more casual posts. They will also be rather longer, so don't feel like you have to free up your calendar to read this blog.
Classes start tomorrow, and I'm fairly excited to be learning more about existentialism and aesthetics, two fields in which my knowledge is somewhat limited.
My roommates and I were talking today about the abortion controversy. We agreed that one of the reasons the two sides of the debate have such trouble talking to one another is the divergence in definition of certain terms, namely: life, person, body.
Pro-choice advocates feel as if they have a right to choose what happens to them and to their own bodies. Pro-life proponents would most likely agree with that simple idea, but disagree on the referent. To a pro-life person, the fetus is a person, not a part of the mother. It is not a question of what the mother is doing to her own body, but what she is doing to the other inside of her.
John said that he thought the pro-life position was more suited to the liberal side than the conservative, by the fact that protecting the helpless/defenseless is a defining trait of the leftist camp, and opposing abortion is simply carrying the idea further. Something interesting to think about, but it still comes down to the definition of terms. A respectful explanation of what each side means by certain words may help a little in conversations between the two groups.
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