Prior to the Civil War, especially after the Dred Scott decision, "States' rights" were paramount and the federal government had no authority to legislate things like "opposing slavery", recognizing blacks as human beings - literally - or ensuring equal protection of the laws for anyone.
Since one of the basic considerations in the abortion debate is the threshold of "viability", I have been thinking about what that means. I don't actually agree that viability (being able to exist outside the womb) is the issue - the better question is when does the fetus become a person. This has to do with what I think of as the soul (I'm not a religious person, but I do imagine that there is a resident of the body that is kind of like the driver - call it consciousness - that somehow chooses to move into the new corporeal form at some point. If this soul exists outside of physical form, then it is most likely not affected by the death of the body.
Now here I will shift to imagine what a religious person (particularly a Christian in the case of abortion, but also many other religions and philosophies espouse) should see as the correct context for birth and death. Life on Earth is a temporary condition, and not all that important in the eternal scheme of things.This concept, which is a
teaching of many religions, is contrary to the obsession with preserving life at all costs. The preservation obsession arises from uncertainty and a fear of death, even for those convinced that Heaven awaits them on the
other side. While this contradiction seems extremely weird, it is actually well aligned with the common human affliction of thinking our delusions are reality.
Time for the good part of yesterday's musings: let's assume that the soul has the power to choose which body it wants to enter for the ride of a life, and the body doesn't become a sentient person until the soul straps into the operator's seat. Keep in mind that the new body is in the process of being manufactured, by some magical preprogrammed process, in an older body that also possesses a soul-driver that has its own suite of desires. Isn't it the case that the new soul basically moved in the the existing person's house without getting an agreement first to be provided with full-service accommodations for decades, rent free? It's very much like the mother is being forced into slavery. You'd think the woman would get some say in the matter - an agreement or contract, with compensation.
As for the sanctity of life, death (which many folks, especially religious ones) is merely the moving on of the soul to the next place. It can, and does, happen all along the timeline of a life - so what makes abortion, the intentional rejection of slavery by a woman, an unacceptable choice? El Soul just gets to cut the line and get into Heaven sooner!
