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From: barry@mit-eddie.UUCP (Mikki Barry)
Newsgroups: net.abortion
Subject: Back to you, Ken
Message-ID: <3824@mit-eddie.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 18-Mar-85 11:19:07 EST
Article-I.D.: mit-eddi.3824
Posted: Mon Mar 18 11:19:07 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 20-Mar-85 04:40:29 EST
Distribution: net.abortion
Organization: MIT, Cambridge, MA
Lines: 63


I am well aware of your views concerning when the fetus becomes a baby.
You believe it is at the moment of conception.  I believe it is a person
when it can survive separately and apart from the woman providing life
support.  Then and ONLY then is there something to *kill*

You know, Ken, it is wonderful that you work for Birthright.  However, the
very name of the place scares away many women.  It implies that the fetus
has a right to the use of the mother's body.  It does not.  The Supreme
Court agrees, and it is now the law.  If your group changes the law, and I
want an abortion, I will go where it is legal and have one, or if I feel
strongly enough, I will have an illegal one.  Why not drop the dogma and
start facing the reality that abortion WILL happen no matter how much you
don't like it.

>WHY are the doctors working on the premie???
>WHY are the doctors leaving the other (in the case of 'live birth') to die???

I must wonder about a doctor who would leave something that is living and
breathing on its own to die.  I have never heard of this happening, and having
relatives that worked in hospitals (in delivery rooms), at least at these
hospitals, doctors DO NOT leave anything to die.  Second or third trimester
abortions are rare.  It is SO rare that an abortion could have survived on
its own outside of the mother that it shouldn't even used as issue to ban
all abortions.  The cases of a child being born severely deformed and the
parents and doctors deciding to withhold treatment is completely different
than a fetus living after an abortion.


>Is the difference one is wanted and the other an embarrassment?

>One is at the 'right time in my life' and the other not???

>Please tell me the difference, because I really want to believe that we have
>NOT been killing babies to make our lives more convenient!!!!!!

Ken, whether or abortions have been for the sake of convenience is not an
issue, nor should it be.  If I choose not to have a child, and become
pregnant, I will abort.  If somebody else convinces me to have the child
I will.  I don't care when *you* think life begins.  I also don't care
if you think I am killing something.  If I choose to have an abortion, I
will have one.  If *you* want to carry the fetus to term, and take 
responsibility, please do.  But I don't want the sickness, sacrifice, etc.
of carrying a pregnancy to term if I don't choose to.

I realize that you will not be convinced of my position, and I will not
be convinced of yours.  So why not lay aside this argument of when life
begins, and what is murder, and work on prevention of problem pregnancy?
Or, work on making sure the pregnant woman is presented with ALL alternatives,
INCLUDING abortion by an unbiased third party?  (By definition, pro-lifers
are not unbiased)

Believe it or not, I don't like the idea of abortion (that is why my 
Significant Other and I use contraception).  But if an accidental pregnancy
occured (yes, there is such a thing as an accidental pregnancy), the decision
to carry to term or not is mine.  And it will always remain mine, whether or
not the laws change.

>Regards,

>Ken Arndt

Mikki Barry