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From: laura@utzoo.UUCP (Laura Creighton)
Newsgroups: net.flame,net.abortion
Subject: Re: ENFORCED birth control?  NEVER!
Message-ID: <3727@utzoo.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 7-Apr-84 12:16:14 EST
Article-I.D.: utzoo.3727
Posted: Sat Apr  7 12:16:14 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 7-Apr-84 12:16:14 EST
References: <2671@rabbit.UUCP>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Lines: 55

If some people are going to have sex without practicing birth control
then there are going to be pregnancies. Even with perfect birth
control there are going to be some ``unwanted'' pregnancies, but
the odds go way up if you do not practice birth control.

Now, the question is, who should be responsible for these fetuses?
The pregnant woman? Both partners in the sex act? The parents of
the pregnant woman? Both sets of parents? Society at large?

If we operate under the assumption that the fetus may be human and
that killing a human being is an atrocity which should not be
done for reasons of convenience and avoiding responsibility, then
*somebody* has got to be responsible, because babies and children
cannot be responsible for themselves.

If you judge that a parent is responsible, you have to wonder whether a
parent has the right to prevent his child from having sex. Given laws
about statuatory rape the legal understanding of the matter seems to be
that people under 16 are not having sex. Clearly, the law needs to get
in touch with reality.

Sex is not like any other human activity because one of the possible
results is a fetus. When perfect birth control becomes available
sex can be on a par with any other activity done for pleasure, but
wishing that it were like that now does not change the fact that
now, pregnancy is one of the natural consequences of sex, and must
be considered.

Forced birth control would force people to be responsible in an area
in which many people have been irresponsible. Force, however, is
not a very attractive way to develop responsibility. It would be
better to have people decide either to take contraception, or to
understand that they (or their parents, or anybody else they could
find who was willing to take the responsibility for that matter)
would be responsible for any child that they engendered while not
practising birth control. This would virtually do away with
``unthinking acts of sex'' (since you would have to do some thinking
before you signed this document) which would cut down on the number
of ``unwanted pregnancies'' (well, if you *really* didn't want one
why didn't you practise birth control? you knew the consequences -- it
says so right here, beside your name).

But assuming that people have, not only the right to not think, but
also to escape the penalties of their unthinking is a mistake. If
I do not think, and somebody rescues me from the results of my unthinking
then I have received a valuable gift, not something that I was
entitled to.
-- 
Laura Creighton
utzoo!laura

	"Not to perpetrate cowardice against one's own acts!
	 Not to leave them in the lurch afterward! The bite
	 of conscience is indecent"	-- Nietzsche
					The Twilight of the Idols (maxim 10)