Abortion, Absolutism, and Compromise

Abortion and political compromise.

Permissive abortion laws, religion, and moral compromise.

Article: In the 1984 elections in the United States some of the candidates were criticized for advocating public policies that conflicted with the teachings of their churches. Chief among such targets of this criticism were Catholics, such as Geraldine Ferraro and Mario Cuomo, who defended permissive abortion laws while maintaining that in private they regard abortion as morally wrong. The purp...

Abortion and the Pied Piper of compromise.

Russell’s Absolutism vs.(?) Structuralism

Along with Frege, Russell maintained an absolutist stance regarding the subject matter of mathematics, revealed rather than imposed, or proposed, by logical analysis. The Fregean definition of cardinal number, for example, is viewed as (essentially) correct, not merely adequate for mathematics. And Dedekind’s “structuralist” views come in for criticism in the Principles. But, on reflection, Rus...

Inm-6: Abortion and Infertility

Background: The maximum probability of conceiving during a menstrual cycle is only about 40%. One third of conceptions do not result in the delivery of a baby recurrent miscarriage, defined as the loss of 3 or more pregnancies before 20 weeks post-menstruation that affects 1% of all women. Approximately 20 percent of pregnant women will have some bleeding before 20 weeks’ gestation, and roughly...