Paul Tram wrote:

Ultimately, though, it is PsyckoSama's choice as it is _his_ story.  As it 
doesn't seem to appear too often, I can usually ignore the issue.

Certainly it is PsyckoSama's story, and his decision.  It is, however, 
my responsibility as
a C&C-er to inform the author when I find a (in the smoking case, minor) 
story point seriously
compromising my suspension of disbelief.  What he chooses to do with 
that information
is, as always, up to him.

Now on to a not-so-minor story point:

Hotaru knows that she is the reincarnation of a person living during the 
Silver Millenium.  Therefore, for Hotaru reincarnation is not simply a 
(possible) part of her religious beliefs, but a fact.  The typical
Japanese position on abortion is heavily informed by the belief that all 
that has been lost is one go-around through life for that soul (with no
change in karmic position), rather than any concept that a newly-created
soul has just been deprived of its one and only shot.  Hotaru should
believe this even more strongly than a normal Japanese girl.  So why is
she taking a stance toward her pregnancy so different from that almost
any other Japanese girl in her position would be taking?  Why aren't
Michiru and Haruka making more of an effort to persuade her to be
"reasonable"?  (You could, of course, attribute virtually any position
to Setsuna with complete plausibility.)
   

Actually, the Senshi were reincarnated thru a spell cast by queen
Serenity.  Not by natural reincarnation as suggested above.

Is there a meaningful difference?  I don't believe I've ever seen it 
even suggested that the
inner senshi, at least, were anything other than dead when the spell was 
cast.  The usual
description goes something like "gathered the souls of the fallen and 
sent them to Earth to
be reborn".  In any universe where this can be done by spell, the 
default assumption would
be that the spell was just a special case of what usually happens (i.e. 
it preserved memory
and appearance), rather than some monstrous distortion of the nature of 
reality (preventing
dead souls from reaching heaven).

 From a literary point of view,  all that this means is that, ABSENT  
OTHER EXPLANATION,
readers must and will assume Hotaru to have the usual mix of Shinto and 
Buddhist beliefs about
souls and reincarnation, somewhat reinforced by personal experience, and 
consequently just
what sort of a deed abortion is.  [Also, two points I did not make 
explicitly earlier:  some
schools of personality classification assert that an enormous percentage 
of any given population,
say 90%, pays much more attention, in judging the morality of actions, 
to their perception
of the opinions of those around them than to their own deductions from 
ethical first
principles; in a Japanese context, this means readers assume (absent 
other explanation)
Hotaru to view abortion as a regrettable occasional necessity.  The 
second point has to
do with the debated distinction in cultural anthropology between "guilt" 
and "shame" cultures
(see Ruth Benedict for example).  Members of a "guilt" culture might 
decide that a given
deed is wrong regardless of the likelihood of anyone else finding out 
about it; in Japan
(a "shame" culture to Benedict) the likelihood of a person refraining 
from a "bad" deed
is supposed to directly reflect the likelihood of discovery.  And w.r.t. 
discovery, the other
senshi don't count, (once more, absent other explanation).]

Now, explanation can take many forms:  it could have been revealed to us 
that Hotaru was
raised as a Christian; it could have been revealed to us that the 
dominant religion during the Silver
Millenium considered abortion to be a monstrous, abominable deed.  Or, 
as I mentioned
previously, Hotaru might be given personal reasons for regarding the act 
of abortion
differently from her age-group peers in Japan.  BUT NONE OF THESE 
EXPLANATIONS
WERE EVEN ATTEMPTED.

Also, just because one may have personal experience in reincarnation
(spellwise or not), it does not mean that taking the life of an unborn
child would mean any less.
 

By itself, no; but you're begging the question, what DOES it mean?  
PsyckoSama
seems to me to be assuming that his readership will swallow, without 
effort, his attribution
to Hotaru of a Catholic or conservative Protestant or Muslim or orthodox 
Jewish view of
that meaning, when we all know that she's a Japanese girl, and he's 
given us no reason to
judge his character by any standards other than "typical Japanese 
schoolgirl".  And, by
the standards that he has (by default) asked us to judge her by, she's 
out-of-character
in making the decision to have the baby (not to mention that the 
"ends-justify-the-means"
twins, Michiru and Haruka, haven't been doing ANY of the things one 
would expect the
two of them to be doing.  What, no "prices have to be paid" speeches 
vis-a-vis getting
Hotaru into college?).




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