Storm-Rider,

I appreciate you sharing your perspective. It is helpful to read these arguments, to better understand the thinking behind them.

Given that you characterize abortion pre-viability as a sin, it would appear that you see pre-viable abortion as an immoral act. If so, I’d say we’re in fundamental agreement on the nature of abortion, even if might continue to disagree on the right way to deal with it under the law.

But if you’re willing to continue this interchange, I’d be interested in your answer to these three questions:

1. Why do you draw a distinction between “mechanical support” and the “normal loving care of its mother or father? For instance, if a baby is born with an atrial septal defect requires surgery to live, is the newborn no longer viable?

2. What is your argument for giving priority to a woman’s right to privacy over a fetus’ right to life?

3. Why does the mother’s right to privacy end upon viability of the fetus?

In answer to your question, I don’t know Peter Singer except through a few of his writings. He strikes me as a very smart, very rational man who takes utilitarianism to its logical conclusions. I find his positions fascinating and frightening, and the extremity of his conclusions are excellent indicators of the immorality of utilitarianism.

Singer’s position, as I understand it, is quite different from Nazism. Nazism was primarily focused on the preservation and expansion of the Aryan master race, and its adherents were prepared to endure all sorts of pain and suffering to those ends.

Singer, on the other hand, is primarily focused on minimizing pain and suffering of all species (he is a big animal rights supporter) is to be minimized. He gives no particular preference to any group of humans – or humans as a species, for that matter.

I should also add that Singer comes from a Viennese Jewish family that fled after the Anschluss (his grandparents apparently died in the ghettos and concentration camps), so comparing him to a Nazi is, er, provocative…

L3