BUT it is not the only argument.

Nobody said it was the only argument. There have been many lines that have been suggested. Should we arbitrarily choose one, or should we do the thinking that is required to compare them? Each can be investigated - compare the immediate before and after, compare the magnitude of the change, if it were isolated at the line and examined would it be clear that the change had taken place (is there in fact a bright line, or just an arbitrary generality), explain what it is that came before and why it is not just a younger person.

If life exists, it must begin. What we say is that conception is obviously the bright line. Nothing else compares. Nothing else is even in the ballpark. Reason it out for yourself, as I once did - few arguments are clearer. It is indeed black and white for those with the courage to think.

The point of art is to inspire, not to “provoke.” A pile of stinking garbage can provoke. A work of art must do much more than merely provoke.

Fact or fiction, this unartistic provocation is still sick.

To believe that death in some way becomes art is sick.

Death to a Believer in the LORD Jesus Christ is a new life, it isn’t art, it’s only through Christ we can be saved, there is no art here.

This piece of trash didn’t prove anything, what it did do is allow those who read much of the news to see just how tainted and vulgar our teaching institutions have become. This piece of garbage has done nothing to bolster anything, but rather to shine a glaring light upon those who study at University, ….. would that mean a scholarship or any sort of aid which could have gone to a potential cause to better the medical community, or mankind? …. or prove how putrid art can become and then try to intellectualize it?

I do agree that its not that simple on the one hand. On the other, if many of us agree whether pro choice or pro life that reducing the number of abortions is a good thing, can we not at least concentrate on the common goal and leave the moral superiority snarking aside?

Joel

Well if it was meant to provoke this kind of conversation, then perhaps it is art. Art does provoke, if it is any good at all. Very heartened that it is fiction.

The Yale spokesperson said, “She is an artist and has the right to express herself through performance art.”

Typical moral coma language.

We can find some cheer in the almost universal repulsion expressed at this intended “performance art,” even as we rue the illogic of those who sanitize the same horror under the rubric of “choice,” in contexts where they can avoid confronting the bloody reality of what is being chosen.

I’m not clear on that either.

No, but in that case there’s no ambiguity; the one killed is beyond doubt a person.

Abortion is not that simple. There is a very good argument that conception is a “bright line” that makes the demarcation, BUT it is not the only argument. Historically, even in America, something called “quickening” — usually defined as the first discernible independent motion the fetus makes — has often been the divider. (Laws against abortion at all stages date back only to the late 19th century in America.) Roe v. Wade drew a line at viability, which might be seen as a more medically sophisticated equivalent to quickening. Before viability, Roe forbids most restrictions; after viability, states are free to restrict abortion however they see fit so long as the health and life of the mother are protected.

Even theologians are not united behind the idea that life begins at conception. It is a common position, but it is not the only one.

This is not as black-and-white an issue as it might seem to some.

Not really. We’re all caught up in our thought experiment right now. Perhaps as the artist intended.

SteveG:

I appreciate your honesty, but I would say you are not that casual with moral judgments in other areas. Take, for example, a recent WotW post about fathers in India killing their infant daughters to avoid paying dowries when the girls reach marriageable age. I doubt you would argue that the decision about whether to kill your infant is a difficult one that should be left to individual fathers, and sure sometimes fathers who really could afford a daughter kill their baby girls anyway but hey what can you do. I doubt you’re that casual about aggressive wars (it’s a tough call, so let the commander in chief decide).

CoyoteBlue:

It’s really not that simple. SteveG apparently believes abortion is murder, but murder that can be justified. And NJLawyer believes that pro-choice groups don’t just have an honest disagreement about whether abortion kills a human life, but they know it kills a human life and relish that thought in their obsidian hearts.