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From: tdn@cmu-cs-spice.ARPA (Thomas Newton)
Newsgroups: net.abortion
Subject: Re: responsibilty issue
Message-ID: <344@cmu-cs-spice.ARPA>
Date: Wed, 24-Apr-85 23:43:08 EST
Article-I.D.: cmu-cs-s.344
Posted: Wed Apr 24 23:43:08 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 27-Apr-85 00:19:48 EST
Organization: Carnegie-Mellon University, CS/RI
Lines: 49

> If you want to have the fetus kept alive so badly after its removal from the
> host, feel free to make the technology available.  But don't try to suggest
> that pro-choicers have that obligation.  We're the ones who don't believe the
> fetus has rights in excess of the mother, remember?

And I'm sure that there were many people in the Old South who didn't believe
that blacks had any rights to life & liberty that would exceed their "right"
to own "property".  Does the fact that there are still a few Ku Klux Klan and
Neo-Nazi types around give these people the right to enslave blacks and kill
Jews, because they don't believe that there is anything wrong with it?

Except in the case of rape/incest, the mother had a CHOICE whether or not to
engage in the activities that led to the pregnancy.  Avoiding the consequences
of that choice by killing someone else (the baby) is not acceptable.  In the
case of rape/incest, having society bear the costs of keeping the baby alive
separately from the mother is the solution most fair to both mother and baby.
(Unfortunately, the choice in rape/incest cases today is between victimizing
the mother further and victimizing the baby -- not a very good choice.)

> I'm willing to bet that if you provide a technology that keeps the fetus
> alive and does not impose any excess medical risk on the mother, and you pay
> the extra costs (note: *you*, not society), most if not almost all women will
> use that technology.  But it seems to me that the ball's in your court.

Sorry.  I just don't agree with this.  If you spend a lot of money and get
deeply into debt to a bank, you could propose killing the bank manager and
erasing the records to "solve" your financial problems.  Assuming that you
could get away with it (either through a law/court decisions making it legal
to kill bank managers, or through luck/skill), you would indeed get rid of
your money problems.  But I have the right to insist that you can't kill the
bank manager, and it isn't conditional on my agreeing to pay back your loan.
Even if you don't believe there is anything wrong with killing bank managers.

Of course, not spending the money in the first place would prevent you from
getting into this situation, and it might be possible to spend *some* money
without risking a high probability of defaulting on the loan.  This roughly
corresponds to not having sex, and having sex but using birth control.

If a man gets a woman pregnant, it is the man and woman who are responsible
for the pregnancy, not I.  Anything they do to alleviate the consequences of
that pregnancy is entirely up to them, AS LONG AS IT DOESN'T INVOLVE VIOLATING
SOMEONE ELSE'S RIGHTS.  Abortion involves violating the baby's rights.  Putting
the baby in an incubator, if one was available, wouldn't.  But since the father
and the mother brought the baby into the world, *they* should pay for its care
until someone else (like an adoption agency or the government) volunteers to
take over the baby's care.

                                        -- Thomas Newton
                                           Thomas.Newton@cmu-cs-spice.ARPA