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From: liz@tove.UUCP (Liz Allen)
Newsgroups: net.abortion
Subject: Re: \"Words mean what I pay them to mean . . .\"
Message-ID: <283@tove.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 23-Jul-85 23:47:22 EDT
Article-I.D.: tove.283
Posted: Tue Jul 23 23:47:22 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 26-Jul-85 00:15:34 EDT
References: <3213@decwrl.UUCP> <1258@pyuxd.UUCP>
Reply-To: liz@tove.UUCP (Liz Allen)
Organization: U of Maryland, Laboratory for Parallel Computation, C.P., MD
Lines: 38

In article <1258@pyuxd.UUCP> rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Rich Rosen) writes:
>
>Good.  Then if fetuses can be removed from the wombs of women who don't
>want them, then YOU (and those like you) can wean them into humanhood
>using this technology.  Oh, I see, YOU don't want them, you want the woman
>to be "responsible" because of your blame-oriented religious dogma...
>I'd love to see the day when this technology really does exist (to
>my knowledge it doesn't on a large scale), so that anti-abortionists could
>really put their money where their mouths are.

I don't think you'll find the pro-lifers *so* reluctant to take
the responsibility of the "fetus" outside of the womb.  Pro-lifers
are more and more putting their money, resources and time where
there mouth is -- to help women who really do want to keep their
baby.

I think you're forgetting something else here, too.  A woman who
has given up her baby (fetus?) to be raised by someone else -- even
at such an early time -- is likely to want to know what has happened
to the child.  I think the situation would be more like adoption
than abortion since with abortion you know that the story ended.
I think it is likely that the woman will want some say in what
happens to the child and that, of course (it should be "of course"!!)
involves responsibility.  If she's willing to sign some kind of
adoption papers, then it is a different story.

At the Pregnancy Aid Center, we often hear an odd dichotomy.  A
woman who wants an abortion will often say something like "I couldn't
give up my baby for adoption".  Notice that fetus is a "fetus"
until she thinks about it being born, then it is "my baby".  I
think a fetus removed from a woman's womb way early would be called
a "baby" and the woman would call it "my baby" -- as long as the
baby's at least 6 weeks in the womb and looks like a baby.
-- 
Liz Allen    U of Maryland   ...!seismo!umcp-cs!liz   liz@tove.ARPA

"This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you:  God
 is light; in him there is no darkness at all" -- 1 John 1:5