Comments on the Texas Abotion Decision from STR

Steve Wagner makes good comment on the recent decision in Texas to imprison a man for stomping on his girlfriend's stomach to abort her twin babies, while not prosecuting her due to the right to abortion. He responds to the "Mystery Passage" in Planned Parenthood Vs. Casey, noting that is basically says what a person believes about the fetus makes it what it is. However, he notes that the case in Texas only goes to illustrate that this only really applies to what a woman thinks about the fetus, writing, " the highfalutin language of the Mystery Passage applies only to the woman’s beliefs and not to the man’s."

Wagner goes on to comment:

What makes a woman’s perceptions of reality so much more durable and far-reaching than a man’s? The woman is physically connected to the fetus. So a woman’s metaphysics are superior to a man’s, but not because her reasons are better or her view is more accurate. Rather, her physical proximity to the being in question makes her view true! Under this rule, a pregnant woman who thinks she is carrying Swiss cheese is correct and her embryologist husband, who believes she’s carrying a living whole human organism, is mistaken.

The inconsistency in applyinf the law regarding fetuses (or rather, the inconsistency of the law) is quite astounding, and the idea that proximity makes one a better judge is astonishing. Proximity, in my experience, more often than not only goes to cloud rational and clear judgement. The decision in Texas is logically absurd, and morally reprehensible. Two babies are dead at the hands of their parents, and while I can applaud the incarceration of their father, the fact the their mother, the one whom God created to nurture and care for them most of all, gets off scot-free, is unjust beyond words.