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Path: utzoo!laura
From: laura@utzoo.UUCP (Laura Creighton)
Newsgroups: net.abortion
Subject: Re: Who has the right over our bodies?
Message-ID: <3696@utzoo.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 30-Mar-84 16:47:30 EST
Article-I.D.: utzoo.3696
Posted: Fri Mar 30 16:47:30 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 30-Mar-84 16:47:30 EST
References: <581@ihuxn.UUCP>, <2050@cbscc.UUCP>, <7330@watmath.UUCP>, <3673@utzoo.UUCP>, <7375@watmath.UUCP>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Lines: 42

Action and non-action again.

No. Nobody is obligated to raise a child which they do not want. 
There are always orphanages. If you decide to starve your child
to death then you have to make a pretty serious decision. Once the
child becomes mobile you will have to cage it, or otherwise it
will forage for itself. babies (and fetuses) are in a peculiar
position in that they cannot forage for themselves and are
therefore dependant more-or-less totally on other human beings.

Remember that having a child is a responsibility. In raising it
you are agreeing (implicitly or explicitly) to shoulder this
responsibility. One of the responsibilities is that you will feed
the child. If you do not want that responsibility you can eiter put
the child up for adoption or hire someone to do that responsibility.

There is no agreement of responsibility between you and the bone
marrow needer, just as there is no responsibility between you and
anybody else' kids. If I am starving my children then, while
you might have a moral duty to feed them you do not have a legal
one. You may feel that you have a moral duty to give bone marrow
to the bone marrow needer as well, but you are not legally
obligated to do so.

If the fetus is a human being then it does not make sense to
say that your responsibility towards it as anoter human being
(such as don't kill it, something which we all have as responsibilites
towards other human beings) begins when it is born. These responsibilites
are the inalienable rights of human beings and should go to the fetus 
by virtue of the fact that it is a human being.

And until it is possible to demonstrate that the fetus is *not* a
human being (which will require knowing what is ``human'', something
the philosophers are not in agreement upon) one must assume that it
is or run the risk of commiting the atrocity of killing another human
being.
-- 
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