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From: ix192@sdccs6.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.abortion
Subject: Re: Pro-which-life(?)
Message-ID: <1293@sdccs6.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 26-Mar-84 14:23:03 EST
Article-I.D.: sdccs6.1293
Posted: Mon Mar 26 14:23:03 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 27-Mar-84 07:48:46 EST
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From: ...utzoo!laura (Laura Creighton)

> 	"It is wrong to kill human beings"  	<-[ Retyped by me (Kenn) ]
>
> Almost everybody will agree with this. However, a lot of people will
> say "it is wrong because it just is" (thus supporting natural law,
> and having found a basic axiom of truth which need not be questioned)
> where as other people will say "well, this is in general true, but there are
> cases when it is morally right to kill a human being". These people
> (usually utilitarians, since the theory is relatively popular) see that
> the good of an action can only be ascertained with respect to its
> consequences (in this case "the greatest good of the greatest number").
> Personally, I think that utilitarianism is fundamentally flawed. 

Well then why don't you take on a pragmatistic point of view - Humans created
the 'do not kill humans' rule so they or their loved ones wouldn't be killed.
I would think this is a much more efficient and understandable reason than,
"because it is".

> What
> I don't know how to do is judge whether a fetus is human or not. Until
> there is a definition that everyone can live with (and don't hold
> your breath) I do not think you should abort *anything*, simply because
> if you made a mistake in your assessment of human life you would act
> againsyt the basic good of human life, which to my mind is *the*
> basic good and needs no justification.

Hold it kiddo!  Who's lives are you talking about here?  The fetus, and only
the fetus, and I think that's a pretty damned selfish point of view.  I would
never sacrifice any part of my life towards a child I don't have to or want to
have, even if it would mean saving it's life.  And I would never want anyone 
else to do so either.  A fetus can't feel it's death.  It can't suffer.  But 
those of us who it involves can suffer, and most of us will.

(Which I admit is also a sort of selfish point of view, but I would consider 
at least two living human beings more important than one potential one)

>	<and remember, I don't know how to judge>

You're right.

> The question is that I think that it is
> never in your own interest to abort something which is a human being
> and if you think that it is
> then you are making a mistake in your judgement.

I think it is.  Kids are fine if you are ready for them, but in this cut-throat
and dog-eat-dog world we live in (and over-populated as well, remember!), they 
are definetly an impedement for the unhappy mother and father.  And even if
the parents are happy with the child, unless one of them was going to stay
at home constantly anyway, futures and jobs have been changed and the family's
children will grow up in bleaker times than they should have.

> However, having people raised in homes where they are not wanted is not
> good and adoption has such a high rate of failure that either it is
> fundamentally flawed or we don't know enough about how people grow up
> to know how to adopt them properly. Therefore, the solution is to
> make it extremely difficult to get pregnant. Sterilise everybody,
> and then there will be no abortions and no unwanted children. If
> you want children, then make the process reversible.

Good!  I hope you're joking.  Should we eliminate the Jews and Blacks 
afterwards, and annex South America?  Forcing sterilization is playing
the same game as Opression, kiddo.  Watch who you vote for.

> In Canada the proportion of unwed mothers who are on welfare is
> staggering. I have to pay taxes to support these people who were
> so damn irresponsible as to get pregnant in the first place. Birth
> control methods fail, and people do get raped, but I know that most
> of these children were the result of sheer irresponsibility on the
> part of at least one (and usually 2) people. I would rather not pay
> for these people's irresponsibility. I don't condone such blatant
> immaturity and irresponsibility in anyone. Given the great number of
> people who seem perfectly willing to act in such a lousy manner as
> to have irresponsible sex, I would much rather sterilise the lot of 
> them.

Let me get this straight - someone as radical as you can't condone the killing
of a few fetuses, but would rather force a fifth of your entire nation to
undergo a process which virtually none of them would agree to?  Sure, we could
nuke all the poor countries in the world, take them over and there'd be no
third world problems.  We could move the Jews back to Israel and the Blacks to
Africa, all the nationalities to their countries of origin and there'd be no
ratial problems.  It doesn't work Laura, people don't want to go along.  But
with an abortion, two of the three people will go along, and the third isn't
even a people yet.

> A lot of people have told me that this is harsh, but I have
> yet to see why, given that sterilisation is reversible.

It is?  Not when I last heard about it.

> I'll bet if both the pro-life and the pro-choice camps sent their money
> to this cause we would have reversible sterilisations pretty darn
> quick.

I'm willing to pay for an abortion, I'm willing to pay for someone else's 
abortion, but not for other people not to get pregnant!  Unwanted pregnancies 
will always be around while the younger generations are so promiscuous.  No
sterilization will always be guaranteed reversable, so people won't risk a
mandatory post-birth operation.  You'll have the same situation as today -
and with abortion outlawed.  And abortion seems to be the only thing that's
a cure for today's pregnancy problems.

				   Kenn the Kenf
				...!sdcsvax!kenn
				...!sdcsvax!sdccs6!ix192
				...!sdcsvax!sdccsu3!kenn