Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!laura From: laura@utzoo.UUCP (Laura Creighton) Newsgroups: net.abortion Subject: Re: Pro-which-life(?) Message-ID: <3693@utzoo.UUCP> Date: Fri, 30-Mar-84 16:21:46 EST Article-I.D.: utzoo.3693 Posted: Fri Mar 30 16:21:46 1984 Date-Received: Fri, 30-Mar-84 16:21:46 EST References: <785@ihuxq.UUCP>, <3670@utzoo.UUCP>, <7371@watmath.UUCP> Organization: U of Toronto Zoology Lines: 237 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.) Huh? could you explain that Laura? I agree that it is definitely not always in the best interest of the fetus to be aborted, but in the best interest of the person who wants to abort not to? I just don't understand the reasonning behind this statement. Sophie, it is never a good idea to kill another human being. Human beings are very valuable. Thus if the fetus is a human being then killing it is a bad idea. It may not be in your best interests to RAISE the child, but there is absolutely nothing that one can be doing which can justify killing another human being, unless that human being will kill you unless you kill them first. 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. The reversibility rate of sterilisations is very low now, so your suggestion is completely impractible for the time being. It might be a solution in 50 years, but not now, so what do we do in the meantime? 50 years is an unrealistic estimate. The difficulties in reversing sterilisation are not theoretical, but technical. However, if we make abortion commonly available, nobody may be motivated by need or profit to develop reversible sterilisations. "sterilise everybody" eh? who's "everybody". It would be cheaper to sterilise only one sex, but which sex is going to get it? practicality seems to point to males, but how much are you willing to bet, we'd get it? What happens in between children? the sterilised parent would have to go through 2n+1 operations to bear n children (1 desterilisation + 1 sterilisation) + the initial sterilisation. This is pretty crazy!! what about the side-effects of such operations? Your solution is very neat sounding but completely impractical health-wise because it has too many conditions it needs to satisfy. No, it is not unpractical. I don't particularily care *who* get sterilised -- everybody, just one sex, this hardly strikes me as important. If the decision to have a child or not is a decision that is to be shared by the sexes (something that I believe in, but is obviously not belieed by those who think that a woman should have te right to terminate any pergancy she does not want but here husband does not have the same right, or conversely that she should be allowed to bear a child that her husband does not want yet he be prevented from having her bear a child which he wants, thus making the decision to have a child a decision which is entirely the woman's) then it is more agreeable to have both sexes sterilised. The business of the repeat surgery is not necessary. All you need is to make people sign a legal document saying that they will take responsibility for any fetus that they might be responsible for at least in so far as they will not have it aborted. If you are willing to not abort any fetus that you might be responsible for then there is no reason for the sterilisation. However, since a great many people do not want to be responsible for any fetus that they engender, it must be made possible to deal with these people on-masse. If other methods of birth control were 100% effective then sterilisation would not be necesarry. However, there are theoretical problems with this rather than the technical ones concerning sterilisation. 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. A lot of people have told me that this is harsh, but I have yet to see why, given that sterilisation is reversible. On behalf of all pregnant teenagers: "pardon me for being immature". As far as I can tell, immaturity is something one is born with and that one keeps until one becomes mature. Yes, you're right in pointing out that pregnant teenagers are immature. Teenagers usually are. You don't condone immaturity? You'd better stay away from children. Most of the ones I've met are pretty immature. It may be that it is not the teenagers' fault for being immature, but there is something to blame. After all, not all teenagers are immature. I might be able to pardon you for being immature, but that in no way will leave me condoning it. Forgiveness is not the same as condoning. "irresponsible sex", could you define this term please, and explain why it is "lousy"? it is lousy because all actions which are so short-sighted that they do not take into consideration their consequences are te products of unthinking minds. And unthinking is my bottom line definition of evil, just as life is my bottom line definition of good. I can go on about this at great length, but I do not have REASONS for believing that life is good and unthinking is evil, they are basic truths. (Remember I said that I was not particularily interested in teleological theories of ethics). My, we are being holy!! If you are interested, Canada is like most industriali- sed countries in that it has a problem because its population is aging. These children who are the product of "irresponsibility" or whatever are the ones who will be paying for your livelyhood when you are too old to work, they will be the ones producing the food you eat and all the other goods you will be consuming even though you will not be working. Without them you'll be dead!! You'd better take care of them now when you can. By aboring them? Sounds like a pretty crummy way to take care of them to me. by the way, I doubt that any of todays children will ever be supporting me. I expect the whole Social Security system to collapse within the next 20 years. You basically have a choice between 2 types of society: In the first one, the strong take care of the weak, where the weak are usually the young, the old, the diseased and the socially disadvantaged. It is hoped in this kind of society that at one time in their life, each individual will be strong and contribute to the caring of the weak. It is also more or less accepted that there are some people who will never be strong enough to pull their weight and others who will never be weak enough (except in childhood) to benefit from being helped by the strong. This is what is commonly refered to as a "welfare state". Ah, there is a lot more to this than that. In the second one, everybody does as they damn well please and nobody cares about the others. Let them eat shit if they can't defend themselves. The problem with this one is that most people cannot be continually strong, so this society is the kind of society where children, old people, and other weak members are left unprotected. Talk about killing embryos, what about letting old people starve? For some reason, the second thing seems as bad to me as the first one (or even worse since we know for sure that old people are persons) It does not follow that people will not care for others unless tere is some big government forcing them to by means of a welfare state. Most people seem to have oter reasons for caring. ``Dog eat dog'' is one of the great distortions of capitalism. In fact, under a properly working capitalist system tere will be no reason for dogs to eat dogs since it is all too reasonable to co-oporate instead. States, however, are pretty good at making people into objects for other people's benefit which is precisely what you are complaining about. But don't you have the source incorrectly labelled? We live in a combination of the two, but our society is based on the welfare idea. YOU have already benefited from it when you were young. I don't think so. Where do you think that education of yours came from? sure your parents payed a great deal, but society paid even more than they did. My parents payed for private education inprivate schools when I was in grade and high school. Not a drop of tax money went into my education. I am paying for my eductation at university. I have payed for my brother's education at a community college. Canadian universities are cheaper than American universities but I have already paid in taxes more than enough money to have paid for the level of university education I have at an American university. Come again? Where has this welfare system actually benefitted me? You never asked for it, so why should you be forced to pay now? Well you can rhetorically try to get out of it. Pay society back for your education, medical care and promise you'll never use anything that will be produced by those "welfare" children when they grow up, then maybe you can start bitching about being forced to pay money for them. Unfortunately, this is all rhetorical, there is no way for people like you to get out of it in practise, and it is a shame because it will mean that you will continue to take advantage of evrything that is given to you and still bitch about having to pay for other people's children. No. It is possible to get out of the system, but merely difficult. Try any Libertarian party to find out what people are doing. I still can see that I have paid more into the system than I have taken out. 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. The pro-choice people do believe in CHOICE to have children or not and choice over what to do with our bodies. This includes the choice of whether or not to be sterilised. So there is no way that pro-choice people would ever endorse such a solution as the one you've just suggested. I know that. There position is only tenable if the fetus is not a human being, though. Otherwise you are denying the fetus the fetus the right to live with his body which is antithetical to your position. Laura, I am very surprised that you do not have anything more realistic to say about the matter. I have another suggestion in the same vein as yours and much more realistic in that science is quickly progressing in that direction and this solution will be much more practical and less dangerous health wise: do away with this messy business of birth, and have test tube babies instead; you will only need one sterilisation this way. This is fine with me. However, some people will want to have babies the traditional way, and I certainly wouldn't want to stop them. Did you ever read "brave new world": "civilisation is sterilisation" (haha, at least this one is not a cliche this year). We will soon be able to do everything they do there. You won't have to worry about paying for those awful "welfare" babies and their horrible "irresponsible" parents, you will be able to make sure that none of these disgusting welfare people will ever get their hands on kids either. Maybe you will also be able to make sure that none of these "welfare" people are born in the first place by skillful manipulation of the right gene (:-)) After all, if we can progree enough to be able to produce safe, completely reversible sterilisations, why couldn't we also develop safe ex-utero growing environments for embryos? Maybe. Gene manipulation is very tricky, and most people who want kids do not want to *build* them, even if it were possible. ex-utero environments would be nice, but they are harder than reversible sterilisations, and may never be feasible. Sophie, I am not trying to stop irresponsible people from having kids. I am trying to stop them from aborting something which may be a human being. However, I would much prefer that they did not receive their support through a government. Private individuals can support other individuals, after all. I would prefer it if nobody decided to have a kid until it was demonstrable that the means to raise the child was also available. By making pregnancy difficult, rather than just something that happens to you you could achieve most of this effect. -- Laura Creighton utzoo!laura "Capitalism is a lot of fun. If you aren't having fun, then you're not doing it right." -- toad terrific