Internet Commentator

Why not?

At the tail end of a discussion over at Catallarchy which veered into the question of Abortion, Jacqueline Passey offers this slightly contorted analogy to demonstrate why she thinks a woman who has "put another person into a situation where he can survive only with [her] assistance" doesn't have any special obligation to that person:

I drive a car. It is possible that there could be some unknown defect in the brakes on my car and they could fail, causing me to crash into someone, damaging their kidneys to the extent of which they will die without a new kidney. Coincidentally, we could be a perfect donor match. Are you saying that under these circumstances that I then should be forced to damage my body and risk my life to donate one of my kidneys?

Now, I assume that you are intended to recoil from the prospect of risking your life to save someone you have put in mortal danger, but why should this be so? Is this not a form of solipsistic cowardice? The problem with this analogy is that you are invited to identify with the person who caused the crash. But if you are trying to determine what obligations ought to apply, it is necessary to take a neutral stance. For example: look at it from the other guy's point of view. You're in your car minding your own business and get sideswiped, you're going to die if you can't get a replacement kidney. Turns out the lady behind the wheel has a spare kidney - I doubt you would be so sanguine about her refusal to save your life, especially on the grounds that it might risk her life.

It seems to me that the neutral, utilitarian calculation goes against Jacqueline's conclusion. Possible risk of death of perpetrator versus certain death of victim is not really much of a contest. It is understandable that the person who caused the crash might seek to evade responsibility for it if she could. There is no reason why everyone else is obliged to take her side as opposed to that of the victim.

This is often the principal difficulty with such analogies, they are more useful in demonstrating the rather obvious reason why a woman might want an abortion, but tend to beg the important question of why the interests of the mother ought to always override those of the foetus. A more defensible argument is to outline the circumstances in which the mother's interest is paramount - for example, prior to viability the foetus is not really any kind of "person" in its own right - and concede that at a certain stage - for example viability outside the womb - the foetus' interests deserve to get weighed at least alongside those of the mother.

The attachment of hardcore "pro-choicers" to late term abortion is hard to understand - given that most women who choose to abort late in pregnancy have already had plenty of time to make that decision, the availability of late term abortion merely assists or incentivises postponing the decision and doesn't offer any significant extra "choice" at the margin. The principal effect of a restriction on late term abortion is unlikely to be a reduction in the number of abortions, but rather an imperative to decide sooner. I suspect that this attachment is not based on any kind of principle or reasoned argument but instead on a noble lie - that something magical happens at birth which confers on the foetus the status of an individual in its own right denied it a few moments earlier - because of the fear that restriction on late term abortion in particular will lead in due course to further restrictions on abortion generally.

See you next tuesday

The BBC are curiously coy about the "four letter word" revealed when pranksters interfered with the plugs at the back of individual neon letters of the Manchester United sign over the statue at the Sir Matt Busby way entrance to the stadium. United Rant isn't so shy.

Airmail

Great post by Diana at Back Seat Drivers who relates the curious tale of the delivery method employed by her postman, confronted with a packet too large for the letterbox, an unoccupied house, but one with an open first floor window...

..or get better

Just in case I'm ever in any doubt as to what an utterly heartless misanthrope I really am, I can always check my reaction to stories like this: Ronaldo set to miss Man Utd tour which changed from "Just what we need, our mercurial Madeiran is injured and likely to miss the start of the season" to "Great news, he's not injured after all, it's only that his father is seriously ill".

[Title of post refers to my attempt at a "rescue" after once revealing my thoughts on the prospect of Martin O'Neill - on a sabbatical from football to care for his cancer-stricken wife - taking over from Sir Alex Ferguson as Manchester United manager.]

Keane's replacement..

..already at Old Trafford? Intriguing suggestion by Sir Alex Ferguson, as relayed by Sky Sports' Adam Marshall, that Alan Smith might be the man to eventually take over in the engine room. This would certainly solve the Smith conundrum which is that he is a tenacious, committed and skilful player who is wasted on the bench but somehow doesn't really score enough goals to be considered a first-choice striker. Perhaps he might indeed be more usefully deployed in the position he occupied for last night's 6-0 win over Peterborough on a regular basis

Moonstuff

I see that Google maps now includes the Moon for all your crater-perusing needs. Plus, in a nice touch, Google confirms one of my longheld intuitions...

The Crib

Our new house is still not quite finished outside but getting there. The scaffolding came off the front yesterday so I thought I'd post a couple of pics:

Compare to original image:

This time it's different!

There are a number of blogging tics that irritate me (and if I've ever been guilty of these I hang my head in shame!), use of terms like "MSM", or "The Blogosphere". One of the most annoyingly persistent memes (sorry, I know this word is another blogging cliché) is to establish a "watch" blog solely devoted to picking apart the blog posts of your particular bete noire:" Warbloggerwatch, warbloggerwatchwatch, sullywatch, yada yada yada. These blogs resemble nothing so much as a pantomime audience, the "counterpoint" consisting of an abrupt "Oh, no it isn't" more often than any detailed counterargument.

However, this one is rather good. Radley Balko of The Agitator was so incensed by Morgan Spurlock's tendentious, error-strewn output - including Super Size Me, Don't Eat This Book and 30 days - his contempt for capitalism and his popularity among the less reflective youth that the one op-ed piece he intended to write about "Don't Eat.." developed into a fully fledged blog. Lot's of good stuff there and a pretty thorough rebuttal of plenty of Spurlock's disingenuous or erroneous claims.

Gaming Guerillas

I was thinking about yesterday's attacks and the predictable response by some that perhaps Tony Blair might now reconsider the presence of British troops in Iraq. In this particular case, such a concession wouldn't actually satisfy the "mujaheddin". As Amir Taheri notes in today's Times:

But sorry, old chaps, you are dealing with an enemy that does not want anything specific, and cannot be talked back into reason through anger management or round-table discussions. Or, rather, this enemy does want something specific: to take full control of your lives, dictate every single move you make round the clock and, if you dare resist, he will feel it his divine duty to kill you.

Now, there is always the danger of falling into the motivations-of-the-terrorist trap. To prevent or deter such incidents in the future or bring to justice anyone involved, it isn't sufficient, (nor, I'd even say in most cases, necessary) to come to a deep understanding of the terrorists' rationale any more than it is for an ordinary serial killer. But this wasn't the precise issue which concerned me. It occurred to me that, regardless of how rational or achievable terrorists' demands might be, that there was a specific problem attaching to any appeasement of a "low tech" terrorist or guerrilla group that didn't apply in the case of a conventional army of more or less equal or slightly superior strength to yours (in the case of the overwhelmingly superior force, there is unlikely to be an opportunity to appease).

If you are faced with a "conventional" enemy, say your neighbouring country, and you have estimate a reasonably high probability of defeat, it is certainly worth exploring if some concessions might ward off war. In the case of a guerrilla group, which achieves its capacity to threaten through relatively inexpensive means, safety is not ensured even if that specific guerrilla groups withdraws its threat. If it becomes clear that concessions or demands may be obtained so cheaply, you create an incentive for further terrorist action by other groups.

Terror attack on London

Latest from BBC News, Guardian and Telegraph. The Times relates some survivor's tales here.

Update: Via Foreign Dispatches, the BBC has some more eyewitness accounts.