ABORTION- We should do what we can to reduce the number of abortions,
except interfere in any way with a woman's access to a safe, timely, and
affordable termination of her pregnancy.
Two of the many reasons that this should be so are:
1) The status of the human fetus is open to great debate, and to seek an
abortion is ultimately a very personal choice.
2) We are currently doing a very lousy job of taking care of those who
have already been born. At his point in human history, we do not have
the luxury of continuing our rampant, unchecked breeding habits. One
of the great lies of our age is that our planet can support our current
AUTONOMY- Simply, self determination. Whether it refers to an individual or
a society, to be autonomous means having the ability to chart one's own
course. Democracies are created with the hope of being able to channel
some rough approximation of the public will into policy. When external
forces, be they national or corporate, limit or impede a group's ablility
to make their own decisions, autonomy is lost.
While it may seem obvious that autonomy is an ideal to be supported, what
happens when a group decides to institutionalize racism, or treat women
as property? There will always be a tension between allowing for liberty
and protecting the human rights of the vulnerable.