1. Is the state’s permitting abortion allowing the private execution of unwanted babies or
is it simply the permission of a mother to rid herself of an unwanted and unnecessary part
of her body. If abortion is the state allowing private execution and not moving to protect
the life, liberty, and pursuit of happinesss of all of its citizens then this should be concern
of any sane person regardless of if they are Christian or not Christian. If abortion is just
the removal of a unnecessary part of a women’s body then of course it would seem to be just
to keep such a procedure unrestricted by laws except those which would insure that such
operations provided safety for the health and well being of the mother. But clearly we would want
have a careful, logical, and well researched public discussion on which of these two viewpoints
are reality before permitting abortion since an error of judgement on this issue could lead
to the slaughter of millions of innocents. Which from those who hold to the position that
the “fetus” (strangely a latin term meaning unborn child”) is a seperate citizen and should be
provided protection by the state has already occured in the legalization of abortion.

2. The other issue is in the difficult issue of the amount of “form” and “freedom” we should
allow on public television. MOst agree that allowing the viewing of XXX rated pornography
on public television especially during the Saturday Morning Cartoon hour would not be
a socially responsible action at least for the sake of the children. Some would say that
we should simply allow full freedom to the entertainment industry and that people can
choose to view or not view what is presented. The other view is that society has some
responsibility to restrict some materials from minors and even restrict the production and
distribution. For example most people do not want child pornography made legal. The
question of course of how much “form” will constrict artistic freedom, what social
taboos are so strong that society does not feel entertainments should cross those lines,
and what system of ethics should determine such “form” is what must be worked out.

The historic Christian faith, Judaism, and Islam has viewed “swearing” – the taking
of the name of God in vain or used in a blasphamous manner as such a serious
sin that one could not just place it within an artistic piece since their is no
“imitation” of the sin but an actual commiting of the sin. For instance in writing a novel
a person can speak of adultry being committed but not commit adultry. In a play
or movie it can be done in such a way that it only suggest that adultry took place without
it actually taking place. In films where actual sexual acts really take place and
real intercourse is filmed then from the Christian perspective sin is commmitted in
the production of the film and therefore the film is unethical. In the “swearing” or
cursing of God since the speaking of the words themselves is a sin then the
product becomes “unethical” from the historic position of consitent ethical thought
developed by Christians, Orthodox Jews, and Islamic thinkers. Now can such ethics be
made law? Only if the majority of the people in a culture agreed with such ethical
thoughts so strongly that they wanted their society not to allow such expressions
of artistic expression. Now some “Christians” may not minde there being “swearing” in
art at an emotional level. This says nothing about what the historic Christian world view
would say about such swearing.

That is the point of the inch/mile thing. We would gladly give an inch, and the inch would cover the extreme cases you mention. But the trouble is that it never proves practical to give an inch: people end up taking a mile.

At that point the choice is between (a) a mile and (b) nothing. Of the two, both are jolly bad, but (b) is less bad by a street.

It’s clear enough that if 80% of abortions are for ‘social’ reasons, then there are 150,000 social abortions on this small island alone per annum. As between zero and 150,000, neither is the best available solution – but if people wont take any intermediate solution, then zero is not only better than 150,000 but far, far better. But I guess that much is obvious.

Unfortunately according to current practice 150,000 is better than zero. That’s the central illogicality.

Oh, and you’d ban divorce now too, would you? Give ’em an inch… is right, you gullibles would force us all back into times when women couldn’t leave a husband who was beating them? Or a man had to stay a cuckold? Or a couple had to stay in a loveless marriage? If this goes on much longer then you’ll be advocating the banning of sex outside of marriage.

And finally, citing Bush in defence of life is one of the oddest positions I’ve ever seen. This is the man who personally sent over 100 (I’m not sure of the figures and don’t have time to check. I think it was at least double that) men to their death, including one celebrated case of a black man with a mental age of about 5, just before a gubernatorial election so he couldn’t be accused of being soft (or indeed to pander to ractists, take your pick). To believe that he means what he says in this instance is yet another example of how your trusting (gullible?) nature is exploited by powerful men (another example being your religion).

Now, this seems ridiculously harsh. But unfortunately experience backs up the view than once one makes small concessions, the floodgates open, and the whole situation is worse than before. It is relatively painless not to make the small concessions in the first place.

As Bush said yesterday (this time I agree with him) if is always better to err on the side of life. And on the side of anything that is life-affirming. Two men looked through prison bars: One saw mud, the other saw stars. Best to fix our minds on good things, because there are so many good things out there – why bother about the bad ones?

You say you agree with ‘zero tolerance’, but you don’t say what the penalty would be. You can’t have zt without a penalty. What would you have done with someone who owned a pron mag? should hte offence be greater for someone who sells one? how about the publisher, photographer and photographed?

The best means of prevention is not to have the option in the first place. Create the option, and it will ‘feed’ ppl’s worse nature and create an increased demand.

You never answer questions directly put. For example what legal penalty would you advovate for someone:
1: owning a copy of Playboy ?

2: Selling a copy of Playboy to an
adult ?

3: Owning a hard core sex film ?

4: Selling a hard core sex film to another adult ?