In the abortion issue there’s a painful asymmetry that anti-abortionists have to be careful to skirt, and even throw a skirt over. It’s this.<\/p>\n
If pro-choice laws are advanced, no one is forced to do anything personally. Your religion prohibits abortion? Then don’t have one.<\/em><\/p>\n If pro-life laws are advanced, then the burden of bearing a pregnancy and what eventually becomes a child is on the pregnant women, with no options for termination. In some cases, even existential disaster is not considered good enough.<\/p>\n And this is another crack in the wall of anti-abortion reasoning, in fact a crack so important that it must be papered over, like Erick Erickson does here<\/a>:<\/p>\n I understand the argument of leaving this to the states, but Democrats have already said if they get back the Senate with a few more seats, they will scrap the filibuster to impose<\/strong> abortion on demand. The GOP needs a response.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Bold mine. It looks like an awkward word choice made in the heat of the moment, but consider this: any other word choice renders Erickson’s argument too transparent<\/em>. Another word choice runs the danger of clarifying, rather than confusing, the above asymmetry. The argument that abortion on demand<\/em> is imposed is specious; the proper verb is permit<\/em>.<\/p>\n His word choice here makes it sound like the discussion is about involuntary abortion<\/em>, which is not the case in the least.<\/p>\n The fact that a close examination of this point causes this particular argument to collapse into incoherence suggests his entire side is incoherent. That is, applying the epithet baby-killers<\/em>, as he has done in the past, to women who simply want to survive their pregnancy is a painfully mistaken, if not deliberately dishonest choice.<\/p>\n And that’s why it pays to closely examine the wording of arguments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In the abortion issue there’s a painful asymmetry that anti-abortionists have to be careful to skirt, and even throw a skirt over. It’s this. If pro-choice laws are advanced, no one is forced to do anything personally. Your religion prohibits abortion? Then don’t have one. If pro-life laws are advanced, \u2026 Continue reading