Buyer's Remorse, Reproductive Rights

[tcpip]

One of the better achievements of the last Federal Labor government was managing to get the Gonski education reforms approved by the state governments. Now this going to be all undone. Richard O'Brien (FB) has a few choice words to say on the matter. This follows a notable lack of diplomacy in foreign affairs, and impending doom with proposed changes to the NBN. All in all, it's becoming a boulervard of broken promises, with a some indication that "buyer's remorse" has set in already. Well, just imagine what the next three years are going to be like.

In more local matters, it seems that the state government (no doubt with some support from knuckle-draggers in the ALP) will be attempting to recriminalise abortion. The Victorian Secular Lobby will be meeting to discuss this. Part of the problem of course is that people of certain strong religious persuasions hold the sanctity of life as being the most important moral standard, independently of whether it is a good life, a safe life, or the costs of other lives (it gets really confusing when the same people support the death penalty) - hence absolutely crazy situations such as the Baby K case where there was legal enforcement to keep a child alive who had no brain. Arguably the child then went on to become a member of the Victorian State Parliament.

Comments

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Well, yes, life feeds upon life. Even the most ardent vegan recognises the need to consume another carbon-based lifeform, albeit distantly removed and one without a nervous system.

A better argument I've encountered is the potential that is lost through restricting reproductive controls . Which may be valid as well, but leads to the very odd conclusions that various forms of contraception should be readily available in countries and among income groups which are likely to have to generate progeny with excellent opportunities.

Ultimately, it seems, that nearly all absolutist anti-contraception positions seem to rest on, well, metaphysical presumptions about the sanctity of human life as soul-carriers.

[korgmeister.livejournal.com]

I keep forgetting it's a mainstream Christian proposition that only humans have souls.

I've always found that position baffling.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

The creation myth claims "God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him" ( Gen 1:27) - and that stewardship was granted over other animals, etc.