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Letters
Letters to the Editor
Right to Choose • Free Will vs Determinism, Round 5 • Long White Beards • Philosophy and Politics
Right to Choose
Dear Sir,
Philosophers can debate till they’re blue in the face about the rights and wrongs of abortion (see Tim Chappell – last issue), so long as a pregnant woman ultimately has the choice whether or not to listen to them. There is something cryptopornographic about the entire argument, since it treats the pregnant women as inert objects over whom the various factions strive to claim their dominion.
Neither State, Church, Family nor Intelligentsia have the right to decide in these circumstances what a woman should do, nor pass legislation to prevent her decision from being realised. The foetus is neither their product nor their property. To treat it as such is to compound the crime by treating the woman’s body as their property too.
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