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From: mmt@dciem.UUCP (Martin Taylor)
Newsgroups: net.abortion
Subject: Re: alternatives...(population stress reactions)
Message-ID: <886@dciem.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 23-Apr-84 17:00:01 EST
Article-I.D.: dciem.886
Posted: Mon Apr 23 17:00:01 1984
Date-Received: Mon, 23-Apr-84 19:14:04 EST
References: <19425@wivax.UUCP>
Organization: D.C.I.E.M., Toronto, Canada
Lines: 28

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Martin Taylor is surely being facetious when he attempts to link the
modern practice of abortion to population pressures!  Even given the
neo-Malthusian problems in his argument, I find it hard to accept the
idea that most modern (middle-class, urban, working) women are aborting
fetuses for reasons of overpopulation (overcrowding in their condos,
perhaps?)
==================
No, I wasn't being facetious, but then neither was I suggesting that
individuals consider population pressures when contemplating abortion.
I proposed a hypothesis to the effect that the human species might react
in the way other species react to population pressures, and that this
might be a reason abortion and infanticide tends to happen under stress.
How that is expressed in the perceived rationale of any individual is
quite a different question.  There are many other physiological
and psychological reactions to stress in other species; why not in
humans?  Stress changes body chemistry, and hence behaviour.

I suspect that we would treat each other VERY differently (and much more
gently) in the absence of population stress, and that includes our
treatment of children, both born and unborn.

Please don't confuse hypotheses suggested for possible test with
prescriptions for what behaviour should be considered ethical.
-- 

Martin Taylor
{allegra,linus,ihnp4,uw-beaver,floyd,ubc-vision}!utzoo!dciem!mmt