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From: steiny@scc.UUCP (Don Steiny)
Newsgroups: net.abortion
Subject: Re: Re: Dividing Lines
Message-ID: <342@scc.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 26-Jan-85 23:14:34 EST
Article-I.D.: scc.342
Posted: Sat Jan 26 23:14:34 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 28-Jan-85 04:45:16 EST
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Distribution: net
Organization: Personetics, Inc. - Santa Cruz, Calif.
Lines: 34

>
> I propose that we should consider the "fetus" a human
> being until proven not! 
> 
	
	Ok, if I got drunk and accidently knocked you down the stairs
and killed you, I could get  tried for homocide.  
What should we do with a pregnent woman who gets drunk, trips, falls 
down the stairs and miscarries.  If a fetus has the same status that
someone who has been born has, then that woman would have to be tried
for homocide.  Any miscarrage whatsoever would have to be subject of 
a homocide investigation.  Since some fairly large percentage of 
pregnancies do not come to term anyway, it would keep the police 
and courts pretty busy.  

	What happens if a mother does not have proper pre-natal care
and her child is disabled in some way?   What is the difference between
that and a woman who, say, gives her infant child alcohol, tabacco,
and other drugs.  If the child has been born, then it is obviously 
child abuse, what if it has not been born?

	It is nonsense to think that we could give a fetus 
the same status as someone that has already been born.  The dividing
line is not fuzzy at all.  The logical consequences of giving
fetuses the same status as the rest of us are absurd.

-- 
scc!steiny
Don Steiny - Personetics @ (408) 425-0382
109 Torrey Pine Terr.
Santa Cruz, Calif. 95060
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