<html>
<body>
Greetings:<br><br>
I always find it amusing (but sad) that conservatives are now asking the
rest of us to join in the "collective censure of an evolving
society" with regard to discrimination against women and people of
color. These same people were the ones who condemned Martin Luther
King as a lawless Commie and made fun of feminists (and still
do).<br><br>
When I began my section on "Women and Ethics," I always asked
my students if they agreed with "the theory that women should have
political, economic, and social rights equal to those of men."
Everyone in the class raised his or her hand. I then told them that
this was the definition of feminism in <i>Webster's New World
Dictionary</i>. I was happy to have a class full of feminists, some
of them reluctant and some of them resentful that I'd tricked them, but
there was not a Femo-Nazi or bra burner in sight. <br><br>
I would rather join the consensus of the world community that death
penalty is barbaric and that a woman has a right to choose what she does
with her own body. This right is even more secure with the
knowledge that the early fetus is not a person according the science of
fetal development and according to our religious, moral, and legal
traditions.<br><br>
The reason why we don't read anything about fetal rights in the writings
of our founding thinkers is that it was not on their moral radar
screen. If they did not recognize the rights of women or slaves,
and refused to see their hypocrisy, then I'm sure that their concern for
unborn human beings was as absent as it was among even the most devout
Protestants. <br><br>
Our founding thinker's support for the inalienable right of all moral and
legal persons is now being fulfilled, and there is a growing consensus
that those rights should also extend to gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and
the transgendered. Until we meet the first ETs, this is, as far as
I can see, the last frontier of a truly universal moral consensus on
protecting the rights of all persons.<br><br>
Finally, this call for joining a common moral consensus is especially
ironic when one of these conservatives chooses to flirt shamelessly with
his women critics, insists on typing people according to their headgear,
and calls a person who supports a woman's right to choose a
Nazi.<br><br>
Yours for the growing moral consensus,<br><br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite="">Nick Gier</blockquote><br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite="">I thanks Jennifer McFarlane for
the following gem:</blockquote>
<x-sigsep><p></x-sigsep>
<font size=2>"Truth is the summit of being; justice is the
application of it to human affairs."<br>
--Ralph Waldo Emerson<br>
</font></body>
</html>