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From: steiny@scc.UUCP (Don Steiny)
Newsgroups: net.abortion
Subject: Are Laws what is really needed?
Message-ID: <509@scc.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 21-Jul-85 18:52:42 EDT
Article-I.D.: scc.509
Posted: Sun Jul 21 18:52:42 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 24-Jul-85 20:01:25 EDT
Distribution: net
Organization: Don Steiny Software
Lines: 42

**

	Pro-life advocates (anti-abortionists) frequently try to
pass legislation that prohibit abortions.  

	I think there is a strong parallel between this and the
anti-drug laws.  Drug laws do not prevent drug use.  In fact,
there is little evidence that they affect drug use at all.
The use of tobbacco, a legal drug, is going down, while the use
of cocaine, an illegal drug, is going up.   As long as people
want to use drugs, they will keep using them.    The key to
lowering drug use is social pressure and education.   

	Abortion is something a woman is going to decide about
herself.  If abortions are illegal, then it might be more
expensive or difficult to get one, but that will not prevent
her from having one any more than the laws against cocaine
prevent her from buying cocaine.

	If a woman is opposed to murder and she believes that
abortion is murder, then she won't have an abortion.  It is her
own choice.   Anti-abortionists promote legislation to prohibit
abortion because of their inability to convince people of the
merits of their arguments.  If there really was a compelling
reason for people not to have abortions, say in the same way
that aviodance of lung cancer is a compelling reason to
stop smoking cigarettes, then women would have less abortions
simply because it is the reasonable thing to do.  

	All the anti-abortion legislation shows the inherant
weakness in the postion of the anti-abortionsts.  Laws that 
prevent people from doing things they would like to do are
a type of violence.  Basically, it is the old, "you have to 
agree with me or I'll beat you up" argument.


-- 
scc!steiny
Don Steiny
Don Steiny Software
109 Torrey Pine Terrace
Santa Cruz, Calif. 95060