Life In Our Galaxy is a story about two abortion campaigners from Earth who try to spread their message by visiting aliens on other planets. But they find it difficult to get their ideas accepted, because the way aliens have children is so different from the way humans do.
It is a science-fiction adventure that will be thought-provoking to anyone interested in the ethics of abortion.
All of the first chapter is on this website, so you can start reading the story now.
Life In Our Galaxy is available as a book, which you can buy over the internet and have delivered to your door. There is also an e-book version for the Kindle Fire. And there is a PDF version which can be downloaded for free - for the time being! The book can be purchased or downloaded by the means described here.
So which position on abortion does the book adopt?
The book does not adopt the usual "pro-choice" or "pro-life" positions. Newspaper features on "the rights and wrongs of abortion" are quite common, so most people with an interest in abortion will have already heard the usual arguments on both sides (probably several times!). Instead, the book is designed to provoke people into thinking fresh thoughts on the matter. If you're not convinced that is possible, just try reading the first four pages, and that will be enough for you to decide if you will learn anything new from this book.
But Why Science-Fiction?
Students of the philosophical literature will know that many of the "standard discussion points" about abortion are almost science-fiction; for example, • "Thomson's violinist" • In countries where the abortion time limit is based on "viability", how would this be affected by the invention of artificial wombs? • Can we say that intelligent aliens have no rights because they're not human? I wanted to add a few science-fiction examples of my own, so decided to present all the ideas as a science-fiction story. And for that kind of story, cartoon-strip is perhaps the best format.
Comments/questions can be emailed to "info (at) LifeInOurGalaxy.com"
