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ZorbaTHut  2yr ago (text post)   31616 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 17, 2022

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But there’s one common take that has baffled me for a long time – the one that goes something like this: “Yes, abortion is killing an innocent baby and wrong, but I don’t think it would be right for me to tell (other) women what to do/choose/decide.” This had always baffled me, until I recognized it in the past few months as the domestic violence defense.

Could you describe more what you found baffling about it? My impression is the underlying sentiment ("X is morally bad but it would be inappropriate for the state to punish people for doing X") is quite common, though people will fill in disparate things for X. Is it just that "killing an innocent baby" is so obviously wrong, in your evaluation?

"X is morally bad but it would be inappropriate for the state to punish people for doing X" is common and I believe it in certain contexts.

"X is killing an innocent person but it would be inappropriate for the state to punish people for doing X" is more like the framing that baffles me, and doesn't seem to be used in any other setting (except war, now that I think of it - but it doesn't seem correct to me that these people are bringing up the same meme that applies to war). My point was not about my morality, it's about what other people's morality is on other issues.

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