Climate activists are advancing an argument that is incoherent for a leftist: we have to save the climate for the benefit of future generations -- future generations we are free to kill in the womb if we so choose.
Can a court find that the government's climate policies have violated the constitutional rights of "future generations" when, to legalize abortion, our courts already have explicitly denied that unborn human beings possess those rights at all?Consider, too, that most climate activists are concerned with what they call an overpopulation crisis, suggesting that people ought to have fewer children to conserve environmental resources. Some even say that abortion might be a necessary means of curbing population growth: Asked about overpopulation and "climate catastrophe" at last month's climate-change town hall, Vermont senator Bernie Sanders said the U.S. ought to provide funding for abortion and contraception "in poor countries." His comment was hardly the first time someone has suggested such a policy.
Once again, we are faced with the incoherence of the modern progressive movement, which advocates both more stringent climate regulations for the sake of the children and the unlimited right to abortion throughout pregnancy, both consideration for the rights of future generations and a willingness to kill the unborn to enable a cleaner future.
If unborn children have no rights, then what rights can rationally be had by "future generations" whose members haven't even been conceived yet? This incoherence illustrates the fundamental logical failing of group-based morality. You can't claim that a group has rights as a whole while denying the same exact rights to individuals of the group.
