Two Choices in the Life Debate

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Scott Roeder, heinous murderer, was rightly convicted of Murder One today. I’d have voted for conviction, without giving it a second thought.

And it’s interesting: there are two positions when it comes to the sanctity of life. One position holds that it is not acceptable for one person to take the life of another person without the consent of the other person. This is the pro-life position, and I am pro-life. The other position holds that one person ought to have the right to unilaterally choose to end the life of another person without the other person’s consent. This is the “pro-choice” position. People who believe that they ought to have the prerogative to chooose to end the life of an unborn child are labeled pro-choice. Scott Roeder believes that he had the prerogative to choose to end the life of George Tiller.

Ergo, Scott Roeder and abortion supporters are in the same camp. Period.

2 Comments

  1. Derlin on January 29, 2010 at 11:06 pm

    Isn’t describing pro-choice as one person having unilateral right to choose to end the life of another person overly broad for how it applies to abortion? I imagine that most pro-choice people gladly restrict this right to a mother ending the life of her own unborn child, not the universal right to murder anyone for any reason.

    • Byron on January 30, 2010 at 8:53 am

      @Derlin: Certainly, most pro-choice people would believe that killing an unborn baby is the limit of their tastes; perhaps I should have made it clear that like Scott Roeder, other pro-choice people would limit who gets killed (Roeder would limit it, apparently, to abortion providers). But the point remains: Scott Roeder is pro-choice in the same way that typically “pro-choice” people are pro-choice. Perhaps a clearer way to put it would have been to say that they believe some people have the unilateral right to choose to end the lives of certain other people.

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