Counterpunch goes Ted Rall on abortion as killing

Rall called abortion "killing" more than a decade ago, and said the pro-choice world should embrace that while reframing larger moral issues.

At first, I thought he was onto something, but I eventually soured, in large part because he used the word "murder" rather than "killing," and because of that, it came off as another installation of Rall's own special brand of pretentiousness.

And now, Counterpunch is going partially down the same route, in a piece by Jeff Kavanaugh. No relation to Brett Kavanaugh AFAIK, but "perfect" last name for this. Kavanaugh gets more detailed than Rall, saying that the word "incipient" should come before "human life."

That's a minimum.

He then says "arguably a human life."

That said, there's a loophole.

Or two.

Which means there's more than two sides on this issue, and even within what Kavanaugh presents at the two "main sides" (which they arguably are not) there's many a sub-side.

Cue Idries Shah.

And with that said?

We could criminalize doctors, but not pregnant women.

We could criminalize doctors and levy civil penalties on pregnant women.

And, there's another angle here.

Citing "bodily autonomy" in the era of COVID, coronavirus denialists and cracks etc who call mask mandates Nazism gets into ethical thickets galore.

And, ethical thickets with other human lives at stake.

I agree with Kavanaugh on fixing the background issues that lead many women to feel they have to opt for an abortion at some point. And, per Francisco Ayala, I know that, if a god existed, he would be the greatest abortionist. (Ayala professes to be Catholic, so I assume he believes in this god existing. I don't, or at a minimum, wouldn't apply the word "god" to such a critter.) But, I reject his bottom line.

Fetal viability is where I cut this Gordian knot. And, I know that medicine has pushed that back a lot.

Before modern incubators, any fetus born before 28 weeks was arguably not viable. Before anesthesia and antiseptic procedures, and legends of Caesarian sections aside, any fetus before 32 weeks was not viable.

There's also other issues. You can get criminally punished any state in the union for deliberately killing a dog, if it's not attacking you. But, that's a kind of a throwaway.

So, let's go back to fetal viability. Someone might claim an infant or toddler isn't viable. Do you really want to go down that road, like a modern PZ Myers or like the ancient Mediterranean world? (Maybe even pre-Judaism Israelites?)

Remember, an 80-year-old in a nursing home isn't "viable" either.

I AM NOT viable for any great period of time, for that matter. Neither are you, unless you're either a trained survivalist or a bazillionaire who doesn't have to worry about work any more and will buy his own bank to hoard his own money if needed to buy everything he needs.

And, for people who rail about this, or about medicine making a 20-week-old fetus viable? It's also made complicated pregnancies viable. And, made legal abortions medically viable.

The sword cuts both ways.

The real real issue is that Kavanaugh still thinks this is an issue that can be framed semi-rationally. 

It can't.

He doesn't help his case when he talks about a man with a teratoma for 36 years being "pregnant." The "fetus in fetu" is just like any other teratoma except that all of the "captured" twin is fully inside the body of the other.

But, that does raise the bigger issue, namely that there's not a lot of logic on any of the, per Idries Shah, more than two sides on this issue. Since that's the case, why use the word "killing" at all, even if you've stopped short of Ted Rall's "murder"?