Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site we53.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!ihnp4!mgnetp!we53!bmt From: bmt@we53.UUCP ( B. M. Thomas ) Newsgroups: net.abortion Subject: re: "Correlation? Absolutely." ... say what?! Message-ID: <326@we53.UUCP> Date: Tue, 23-Apr-85 01:20:20 EST Article-I.D.: we53.326 Posted: Tue Apr 23 01:20:20 1985 Date-Received: Wed, 24-Apr-85 02:26:21 EST References: <242@cmu-cs-edu1.ARPA> Organization: AT&T Technologies - St. Louis Missouri Lines: 99 >I. How about some statistics, rather than just some grandiose > assertions?! I'd be glad to. Starting with you. Your attitude is well in evidence in your article. >II. Isn't it better to kill an unborn child than to put it through > the misery of abuse later? No. I can tell you of many unwanted, abused children who grew up and overcame their nightmares, and went on to become not only useful, well- adjusted citizens, but helped others in a way that most could not. > If I were forced to rear a child > because the government said I could not abort it, that child > would become the symbol of the tyranny of the government. I > might very well abuse it. On the other hand, if I am allowed > to rear a child when I choose to, the child becomes a beautiful > gift of nature. The child is a beautiful gift of "nature" whether you see it that way or not, whether you want it or not. It is your attitude that is ugly. Your response itself is powerful evidence of my claim. "If I can't abort it, I'll abuse it." So far, 100% my way. Next statistic? > I would say that an anti-abortion law would be > worse for a child if its existence was not planned. You mean not planned by its parents. All children are planned. I realize that you don't believe that. Doesn't mean it isn't true. >Do you really think that women who have abortions "don't give a >damn who it hurts"? How about the posts awhile ago that showed >that a lot of women who have abortions go through emotional hell >afterwards?! You're kind of playing both sides of this one, aren't you? It's not really easy to answer this one. Many do have just that attitude. I have also known several who have gone through the hell. Many, of course, of the same ones who did have this attitude BEFORE. What I'm saying is that the proponents of abortion speak up for their "rights" without regard to what is right or who may be harmed. >It is hardly as nonchalant as you so portrayed. No one has been >promoting abortion. Then surely it was the pro-life movement who coined the phrase "abortion rights". If you say it's a RIGHT, then you are PROMOTING it, no matter how you manage to twist the language. > Abortion is advertised as a solution (not the >only one) to an unwanted pregnancy. Of course, birth control has >also been advertised, and I think it ought to be stressed as the >single most important factor in preventing unwanted pregnancies. >Prevention is the key. On the other hand, doctors should always >be around if vitamins and exercise don't do their jobs ... And yet you insist that abortion is a right. You are still skirting the one fundamental point in this discussion: whether or not the mass of tissue in question is a person. If so, an unwanted pregnancy is not just another medical problem. There are those who have posted here very clear evidence of this attitude, saying that they believe that it IS a person, but "so what? my RIGHTS are more important". >Hardly. They are pro-choice-in-the-first-trimester. You couldn't >substantiate your statement if you life depended upon it. Your >"evidence" below are nothing but rhetorically distorted rehashing >of the law. If the courts are "pro-dead-baby" as you said, they >would have granted abortion rights even AFTER birth. "pro-dead- >baby"? You are out of your mind! ... My statements were about actual court cases. Notice that I did not say "the laws", but "the courts". The courts have also, as I have said elsewhere, stood up for doctors who chose to terminate accidental live births. In one case a nurse testified that the doctor present actually strangled the child, saying, "Die, damn it!" My charge stands. If I am out of my mind, the question still has to be answered. >... The law simply says that you may choose to have an abortion in >the first trimester. It does not say that you MUST have an abortion. >The courts are certainly pro-choice. It does say that the baby of a mother who wants an abortion MUST die. The "first-trimester" argument is a fiction, a smokescreen. Abortion is legal up to the moment of birth, as decided by the courts. Laws limiting "rights" in this way have been struck down already in principle and many times specifically. What I want to say is that these discussions have centered on "rights", largely disregarding what is right. If it's not right, you don't have a right to do it. There is a continual uproar about one person forcing his morals on another. This is not the point. The point is that people have grown into such selfish children that morality really doesn't enter into it. It is difficult when my three-year-old son says, when I tell him he can't do something, "But I WANT to!" It is thoroughly tragic when an adult says, much more loudly and with all kinds of logical-sounding arguments and even legal maneuvering, and with nobody to tell him no, "But I WANT to!"