User blog comment:Mrdaimion/Serious Sam Issue 1 - Abortion/@comment-1874924-20120205033043

Let's clear up some terminology confusion. As is usual with discussions of abortion (and capital punishment, for that matter), some people are confusing murder with homicide. The latter is the killing of one person by another, whereas the former is the illegal killing of one person by another. Thus, all murders are homicides, but not all homicides are murders.

With an understanding of this distinction, we can see that the very concept of "legalized murder" is impossible. It's a contradiction of terms that there's simply no way around, because illegality is a defining feature of murder. Although "justified murder" is technically possible, it can only exist when the justification is illegal--in other words, when the justification won't keep you out of prison, but might reduce your sentence. (An "imperfect defense", in legal jargon). Likewise, abortion can only be murder in places where it's illegal. Otherwise, what we're really debating is whether it's a homicide, which is a separate question to whether it might be justified.

When people understand this distinction but say "murder" anyway, they're presumably doing so because it sounds worse--in other words, because they're trying to intimidate people into giving in.

Now that we've cleared that up...

For longer than you've known me, I've been working for a Planned Parenthood affiliate that provides abortions (not all of them do; a lot of the smaller affiliates don't) and, ironically, I've become more ambivalent about abortion now than when I started working there. For the record, I endorse limited restrictions but oppose sweeping restrictions. For example, I accept the doctrine of "viability". That part hasn't changed.

The biggest reason why my stance has shifted, I think, is a visceral reaction to the bigotry--there's no other word for it--that so many of my pro-access colleagues (I refuse to say "pro-choice") display toward anyone who disagrees with them on this issue. Honestly, listening to some of these people, you'd think that anyone on the other side of the fence is a hate crime waiting to happen. That's what happens when zealots start to believe their own propaganda. (Behavioral psychologists call this the "False Consensus Effect".) I, on the other hand, am not a zealot who works for Planned Parenthood out of special devotion to its cause; I'm a mercenary who works there because the job itself is attractive, so I have a more objective view of the situation.

If anyone remembers my first tropes listing back at 3000 edits, abortion is a topic that comes up in LTDI. The girl obviously decides against it, else there would be no Brett and therefore no story, but I doubt that many people will guess the specific reason why. (Some guesses might be in the ballpark.)