Date: Mon, 2 Jun 1997 15:33:13 -0500
From: Yoshie Furuhashi <Furuhashi.1-AT-osu.edu>
Subject: Re: Morality? (was Re: M-FEM: (fwd)Abortion - whose rights?)


Boddhisatva:

If you are not interested in marxist analyses of morality, why are you
posting on M-Fem or other marxist lists? Given your viewpoint, it seems
there is little to discuss between us.

Since you are not interested in historical materialism, this time I shall
suggest a *non-marxist* work that greatly illuminates why women, especially
women oppressed and exploited due to their class. race. and gender, do
*not* benefit from making abortion a "moral" issue *in the sense you seem
to understand it*.

Read Toni Morrison's _Beloved_. The novel concerns a black woman who makes
a "choice" to kill her baby so as not to deliver her into slavery. Is her
choice a "moral" one? Yes, in the sense that she decides that it is
"immoral" to give "life" to another human being under such circumstances;
but her "moral choice" to kill her baby has *nothing whatsoever* to do with
a mixture of pragmatism and technocratic scientism devoid of the
understanding of social relations you advocate.

Yoshie