Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.

In reply to mlyoung57. I agree with Roderick’s point about inalienability of the body, but I would be careful about granting what you say about non-human animals. Pet abandonment is immoral, but I don’t think it should be a crime. The reaso…

In reply to Irfan Khawaja. Oh, I know–I’m exaggerating, right? What would I know? I just worked in an OR that did D&Es. Here is a film that describes the situation ca. 2017. People were getting arrested for suspected abortions after hav…

In reply to Irfan Khawaja. Let me add one last, obvious gruesome twist to my story. The patient is a resident of state B, but she’s still in PACU recovering from her procedure in the hospital in state A. The police obtain a warrant to arrest her….

In reply to mlyoung57. I think the case of abortion is fundamentally different because of the inalienability of one’s body. LikeLike

In reply to Irfan Khawaja. I agree with the Michelle Goldberg column 100%. I often think her columns are ideological and stupid. This one was great. Admirably factual, analytical, insightful. And yet full of moral punch. No “righteous mind”…

In reply to Irfan Khawaja. My statement of the obligation not to abort was elliptical, with the omitted bits being the exceptions! Of course there are exceptions for the life and health of the mother! So I’m not thinking what you are thinking that I’m …

In reply to Irfan Khawaja. The Pythagoreans, from whom Plato and Aristotle ultimately derive their peras-apeiron dualism, did indeed connect it with the male-female duality. Also with odd and even, right and left, one and many, rest and motion, squa…

In reply to djr. This is a tangential response to your comment, but I couldn’t help chuckling at this: So too, recognizing that his views of women’s psychology are mistaken and that traditional patriarchal inegalitarian households are unjust wou…

In reply to Michael Brazier. (Responding to Michael Brazier) For now, let me just deal with your very last sentence, which is almost literally dead wrong. It isn’t like slavery, which was prone to spread into jurisdictions that didn’t want it because …

In reply to John Davenport. (Responding to John Davenport) For reasons I offered to Michael Young above, I don’t think it’s advisable to have any legal restrictions on later abortions. Late abortions are generally done for medical reasons (…