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From: sophie@mnetor.UUCP (Sophie Quigley)
Newsgroups: net.abortion
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Whose (not who's!) Life Anyway?
Message-ID: <1419@mnetor.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 21-Jul-85 11:43:35 EDT
Article-I.D.: mnetor.1419
Posted: Sun Jul 21 11:43:35 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 21-Jul-85 14:14:40 EDT
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> }> > > It seems to me that since the fetus of 1 minute and the child of one
> }> > > month differ only in the amount of time since conception.  They
> }> > > share the same genetic information, and are thus the same person. 
> }
me:
> }> Oh, then why bother going through this silly process known as pregnancy?
> }> If they are the same person, then let's pop them out of the oven right
> }> after conception.  It would save some of us women a lot of trouble.
> }
Objections from different sources.

Ok, let me rephrase the above.  Of course the embryo of one minute and
the new-born child (or 7-8 month old fetus) share the same genetic
information and therefore are the same entity in different stages of
development.  However, they differ by much more than "the amount of
time since conception".  Their main difference is in their viability
outside their mother's body.  It is because of this difference that
some women feel a need to have an abortion in the first place. Unlike
the 1 minute blob and 3 month old embryo, the late fetus or new-born
child can survive out of it's mother's body, which easily shows that
some process of giving from the mother to the embryo has happened in
between.  This giving is of nurishment, and other unquantifiables.

Anybody who is ignoring that another person is intimately involved in
the development of embryos just to prove a point is acting in as much
bad faith as anybody who is pretending that embryos are not alive to
prove their own point.  Abortion is not a simple issue.  Presenting it
in simplistic terms is not going to resolve anything.  And nothing is
going to be resolved anyway because there is simply no resolution to
this problem.  There have always been and will always be women who will
need and have abortions, and there have always been and always will be
people who will object to this.  The truth is that abortion is not nice
(call it criminal, whatever) but unwanted pregnancy is just as bad, and
so far, we haven't found any way to get rid of an unwanted pregnancy
without abortions.  Technological solutions like processes for incubating
early embryos will only open other cans of worms, such as state
interference in the creation of people.
-- 
Sophie Quigley
{allegra|decvax|ihnp4|linus|watmath}!utzoo!mnetor!sophie