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A Really Long Post About Abortion and Reasoning By Historical Analogy That is Going to Make Virtually All of My Readers Very Angry At Me
Megan McArdle — I tried to respond to Publius and Hilzoy at their place, but the comments system wouldn't let me.  So I'll have to carry the debate on here. Why the analogy to slavery, or Hitler?  It's inflammatory, and rarely advances the debate.  Such analogies too often degenerate into "Hitler was a vegetarian too, you tofu-eating Nazi!!!*" But in this case, I think the analogy to slavery is important, for two reasons.  First of all, it was the last time we had an extended, society-wide debate about personhood.  And second of all, as now, there ...

In Which I Disagree With Megan McArdle Some More
Political Animal — ... to my last post : "Listening to the debates about abortion, it seems to me that really broad swathes of the pro-choice movement seem to genuinely not understand that this is a debate about personhood, which is why you get moronic statements like "If you think abortions are wrong, don't have one!" If you think a fetus is a person, it is not useful to be told that you, personally, are not required to commit murder, as long as you leave the neighbors alone while they do it. Conversely, if Africans are not people, then slavery is not wrong. Or at least it's arguably not wrong--if ...