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From: johnston@spp1.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.abortion
Subject: Re: Response to Gary's response to ...
Message-ID: <149@spp1.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 24-Jan-85 12:19:20 EST
Article-I.D.: spp1.149
Posted: Thu Jan 24 12:19:20 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 27-Jan-85 07:34:07 EST
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>= Andrew Koenig 
> Incidentally, although I said I don't want to get into this,
> I will answer your question:
> 
> > And do you mean that you would support a law forbidding third
> > trimester abortions?  (Definitely not a rhetorical question).
> 
> My answer to that is "maybe."  Such a law would have to be based
> on medical evidence that a third-trimester fetus is (probably)
> capable of thought, and that there are no other overriding philosophical
> arguments.  For example, one might argue that if it's inside
> your body, you have a right to get rid of it whether it's
> capable of thought or not.  This is a complex issue, which is
> why I don't have the time to get into details.  Suffice it
> to say that I would not consider a law prohibiting third-
> trimester abortions to be an atrocity, and that I would consider
> a law prohibiting FIRST-trimester abortions to be totally immoral.

These thoughts seem to rank with the idea of "guilty until proven
innocent". If your basis for determining the right to live is based on the
capability of thought and (this may be a big assumption) you did not want
to error and uselessly waste life due to unknowns, I would think you would
want to start with a clean slate and allow abortions only when
overwhelming and never to be disputed medical evidence proves that no
thoughts occur at any particular time span. And then allow abortions to be
done later as like evidence appears for the next segment.

The trouble with working backwards is illustrated by your views of first
and third trimester abortion prohibitions. You might allow third trimester
abortions based on evidence of thought that doesn't exist but conceivably
may at some time. Your opinion of first trimester abortions was stated
fairly strongly allowing little room for change (change would be "totally
immoral"). But what is pointedly missing is the criteria for change that
you would allow in the first case, capability of thought. Where would your
position be (morally, since you introduced the term), if this evidence
came in showing thought during the third trimester but something
additional, thought at 11 weeks? Oops!

Question: Does life exist at a certain age before technology conforms it?

				Mike Johnston