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From: pmd@cbscc.UUCP (Paul Dubuc)
Newsgroups: net.abortion
Subject: Re: The Koenig Maneuver
Message-ID: <5217@cbscc.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 26-Apr-85 10:41:31 EST
Article-I.D.: cbscc.5217
Posted: Fri Apr 26 10:41:31 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 27-Apr-85 06:28:06 EST
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Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories <SCCS>, Columbus
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I'm only going to respond to the example that I am involved in here.

Paul Dubuc [me]:
}>>> Of course I believe in free will and freedom to choose; and that includes
}>>> sexual behaviour.  You seem to treat sex as an activity that it beyond
}>>> the realm of individual choice.  I believe that people generally *choose*
}>>> of have sex.  If they will not accept the possibility of pregnancy that
}>>> goes along with their choice, I think they are being irresponsible.
}
Gary Sammuelson:
}> Here, subject A is the thesis that having a choice implies accepting
}> a responsibility, this time in the context of the abortion debate.
}
Andrew Koenig:
}>> Whenever I travel somewhere by car, I take on the risk that I
}>> might be involved in an automobile accident.  Are you seriously
}>> suggesting that if I am injured in a crash, it would be evading
}>> my responsibilities if I were to seek medical treatment?
}
Sammuelson:
}> Subject B is medical treatment of an injury.  Here, the tenuous
}> connection is the veiled equating of abortion, a medical procedure
}> (according to some) which terminates a life, with the treatment of
}> injury, for the purpose of saving a life (depending, of course,
}> on the severity of the injury).
}
Koenig:
}Subject B is whether it is appropriate to try, after the fact, to
}minimize the bad effects of losing a gamble.  So is subject A.
}A person who drives a car runs the risk of an accident, and does
}so by choice.  If that choice to take that risk results in an injury,
}almost everyone would agree that the driver has the right to seek
}medical treatment to minimize the effects of the injury.

}A woman who engages in sex runs the risk of becoming pregnant.
}I was pointing out here that responsibility really isn't an
}issue, any more than it is an issue about treatments for auto
}accidents.

And you are going to establish that pregnancy as the result of sex
is in fact injury?  I know a lot of couples who would like to get
injured in this way.  Does this make them masochists  Be consistent.
An auto accident injury is inherently an injury.  A pregnancy is not.
You can't make a pregnancy into an injury simply by saying it was
unintended any more than you can say that a willful, self-inflicted
injury is not in fact an injury simply because it was intentional.

}Granted, there are some people who believe that
}abortion is morally impermissible, because the fetus is a human
}being who has the right to live.  But that argument has nothing
}to do with the one I was trying to rebut here.

It has everything to do with it.  You have to deal with that issue
first, don't you?  I suppose we could find some people who wouldn't
accord the auto accident victim any right to medical treatment if
she was Black...  Granted, some folks believe Blacks deserve equal
treatment, so would you say that has nothing to do with this argument?
-- 

Paul Dubuc 	cbscc!pmd