Have you ever read Judith Jarvis Thomson's "In Defense of Abortion"? You might enjoy it, as she develops a lot of the points you mention. It's not a very hard read for philosophy, either. One of the points she makes is that even if we grant that a fetus is a person, she may have a right to life but not to the use of your body.
On the religion issue, for all that Xians talk about heaven, most recognize life as a good thing, a unique opportunity to develop and live on your own before being kind of overwhelmed by God's majesty. So just like Xians are as upset as anyone when someone is murdered in a mugging, they're mad about what they consider a murder here. It's not so much the soul's eternal damnation, as it is the lost life.
(Augustine actually did struggle with the idea of what happened to babies that were miscarried or who died before baptism. At one point he thought they were damned because of original sin, but that really bothered him and he kept struggling with the issue for pretty much his entire adult life. Today, most Xians think that if you die before you reach the age of accountability you go to heaven or at least limbo. Not all, of course. I find the other alternatives pretty repulsive, too.)
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branchandroot
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Date: 2012-01-24 08:19 pm (UTC)On the religion issue, for all that Xians talk about heaven, most recognize life as a good thing, a unique opportunity to develop and live on your own before being kind of overwhelmed by God's majesty. So just like Xians are as upset as anyone when someone is murdered in a mugging, they're mad about what they consider a murder here. It's not so much the soul's eternal damnation, as it is the lost life.
(Augustine actually did struggle with the idea of what happened to babies that were miscarried or who died before baptism. At one point he thought they were damned because of original sin, but that really bothered him and he kept struggling with the issue for pretty much his entire adult life. Today, most Xians think that if you die before you reach the age of accountability you go to heaven or at least limbo. Not all, of course. I find the other alternatives pretty repulsive, too.)