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From: preece@ccvaxa.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.abortion
Subject: Re: Room 317
Message-ID: <47800004@ccvaxa.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 31-Jan-85 11:22:00 EST
Article-I.D.: ccvaxa.47800004
Posted: Thu Jan 31 11:22:00 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 2-Feb-85 09:33:49 EST
References: <313@decwrl.UUCP>
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Nf-ID: #R:decwrl:-31300:ccvaxa:47800004:000:2667
Nf-From: ccvaxa!preece    Jan 31 10:22:00 1985

>	Exactly how is it so much different from a baby?  I suppose you would
>	have been one of the people 150 years ago saying, "they look like
>	people but they aren't"
----------
Well, I hope not.  I believe a fetus is qualitatively different from a baby.
It doesn't have a functional brain (at the age I'm talking about), it
doesn't have complete neural pathways from sensors to processor, it can't
live without its attachment to its host.  Clearly it has the potential to
develop those abilities and features, but at that time it does not have
them and they are part of a reasonable definition.  This distinction is
recognized in laws allowing cessation of life support for adults with
similar problems.  Those laws would ask for evidence that the patient's
status was not going to change; I'm not making an analogy, I'm pointing
out that those differences are elsewhere recognized as making a qualitative
difference.

I would also distinguish on experiential grounds.  A fetus has no
experience, no awareness, no personality, no assemblage of beliefs and
perceptions, no past.  I believe that makes it qualitatively different
as well.

Of course, even if it WERE a baby I still wouldn't grant it a right to the
use of its host's circulatory system without her continuing permission.
----------
>					...  Also, the "side-effects" you
>	mentioned are very downplayed whenever a women comes to have an
>	abortion, and people complain when groups feel they should be brought
>	up.
----------
Most of the side-effects I mentioned are present whether the pregnancy is
continued or terminated, but I certainly would hope that everyone considering
an abortion consider their own likely reaction to it.  That's different from
presenting a deliberately horrible picture with the intent of scaring them
away from it.
----------
>	With regards to the emotional issue, how are his emotions any different
>	from those people are trying to invoke when they tell us of all the
>	poor incest and rape victims?  I am not downgrading what has happened
>	to them, it is a tragedy, but the pro-abortion people play on emotions
>	in the same way when they tell of all their "hypothetical" cases that
>	would be denied abortions.
----------
I don't see that as a strictly emotional issue.  You call them "hypothetical"
immediately after admitting that such victims do exist.  Some people may
use the existence of rape and incest victims to provoke emotions; I don't.
I think they are just a subset of those who, for personally compelling
reasons, do not consent to the use of their body by an undesired visitor.
I don't make them a special case.

scott preece
ihnp4!uiucdcs!ccvaxa!preece