Abortion and the Convenience Argument
The diluted Christian claims that “abortion under the right circumstances is fine by me, but under the wrong circumstances, I will say it should not be permitted.” The circumstances of the abortion will be the contributing factor as to whether it is judged right or wrong, acceptable or unacceptable. The argument goes that “having an abortion for aesthetic reasons” is wrong. So much for the artists; I think the Christian suggests the vanity of style of evil, sinful or something along these lines. A mother should not have an abortion because her baby is a boy rather than a girl. The circumstances which are approved are those involving “life or death” of the mother or child (which we won’t touch on) and the “inconvenience” argument. If a mother will find abortion to be an inconvenience, then that permits it. What counts as “inconvenience”? Monetary situation? Let’s speak strictly outside of terms of health. If we do this, it seems like certain “inconvenience” token arguments look very similar to “aesthetic” arguments. “Look, having blond hair instead of brown just is an inconvenience for me. What if my child cannot get into Harvard (because Harvard has been admitting, on average, more brown tops than blond–suppose this woman is really peculiar at choosing inductive variables), that would very much inconvenience me in certain ways.” Is the form of the argument permitting of such an odd token?