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From: laura@utzoo.UUCP (Laura Creighton)
Newsgroups: net.abortion
Subject: Re: Laura's philosophy of goodness
Message-ID: <3715@utzoo.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 1-Apr-84 19:14:08 EST
Article-I.D.: utzoo.3715
Posted: Sun Apr  1 19:14:08 1984
Date-Received: Sun, 1-Apr-84 19:14:08 EST
References: <812@ihuxq.UUCP>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Lines: 54

Ken,
	It was irresponsible to become pregnant (unless you were raped,
or practicing birth control, in which case it was unfortunate) while
unable to provide for a child. However, the irresponsibility lies in the action
of sex (which makes both the male and the female irresponsible) not in
the condition of being pregnant. Therefore you can't undo it by getting
rid of the condition through an abortion. If the fetus is not a human
being then there is no problem with abortion. If the fetus is a human
being, in having an abortion you have just added murder to your list
of actions. In no way do you escape being irresponsible (or unfortunate)
unless the fetus is not a human being, in which case an abortion would be a
perfectly acceptable method of birth control.

The world that I live in is not squeaky clean. But it sure isn't going
to get any cleaner while there are people around saying ``look! there is
this and that and the other rotten thing! I guess it doesn't matter
whether anybody does good or evil at all because since it can't be perfect
there is no reason to make it any better.'' This is nonsense. The only
way that things are going to get any better is if people decide that
they are going to make a concentrated effort to do good rather than evil.

If there was any way to get people to do this, there would be immediate
and dramatic improvemet, since the only evils being done would be done
by people who made mistakes -- and in fact thought that they were doing
good. Given their commitment towards doing the good, then, if you could
demonstrate to them that what they were doing was not-good they would
change their behaviour. The way it stands now it is necessary to deal
with people who make mistakes and people who actively go out and do
evil things, often on the grounds that ``a little bit more evil won't
make any difference''. 

There is no way that you can really force people to want to be good. All
you can do is to try to keep some of the worst injustices from happening
very frequently. It is a much more modest goal, but still progress.

*	*	*

Somebody talked about ``the right of a child to a happy childhood''. I
can't find it in news, so it must be in mail.

Last I checked, Thomas Jefferson (who really knew how to right a
constitution! check it against the Canadian consitution or the BNA
Act in comparison) talked about "life, liberty, and the PERSUIT of
happiness." I think that the order is significant and that it is
important to remember that these self-evident rights include the right
to *work at* being happy, not to have happiness handed to you. It is
nicer, of course, if one *has* a happy childhood, but that is nowhere
guaranteed.
-- 
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