Editor,
I found Jason Darensburg's letter in Wednesday's Daily Lobo quite repetitive. His letter was basically just restating the classic pro-choice argument that a woman should be able to choose what she does with her own body. I have found this argument to be untenable and flawed for three reasons.
One, he already assumes that he is right. The argument that one should have a right to choose what one does with one's own body is just that - an argument. So, its purpose is to try to prove a point, to argue against the opposing viewpoint and for its own. Since this is the case, you cannot put out an "argument" that assumes it is already true.
The whole purpose of this argument is to argue against the opposing pro-life viewpoint. The issue that is being debated is whether a woman has that right in the first place, and that is what Darensburg was trying to prove in his letter.
He may object here, saying that he was just stating a fact. Whether he was stating what he thinks is a fact, though, he was still arguing for it, so we see that he was simply assuming his own point. What he needs to demonstrate is why women have this choice.
The second reason his argument is weak is that even if the statement is true, it doesn't matter - abortion can still be wrong. This is simply because the woman's body is not the one at stake here - it is the child's. That is the body being most directly affected by the abortion. Parents don't have the right to decide if a kid lives or dies or to take the child's lives themselves. We regularly prosecute parents who kill their kids.
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The third weakness of Darensburg's case is that it does not necessarily follow that just because a woman's body is her own that she can then do what she wants with it or even have that choice. Many - if not most - religions, for instance, have rules regarding care of one's body. Jews must eat only certain foods and take steps to keep themselves from being unclean. Christians believe the body is the temple of the Lord and must treat it appropriately. The list goes on.
If anything, ownership of a thing, even one's own body, carries with it a certain responsibility to treat it a certain way. It may very well be, as I would contend, that abortion is not consistent with this type of treatment, especially if the abortion is done only for the reason that the pregnancy is simply inconvenient or the like.
Caleb Lewis
UNM student
