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From: sophie@mnetor.UUCP (Sophie Quigley)
Newsgroups: net.abortion
Subject: Re: Re: Are Laws what is really needed?
Message-ID: <1668@mnetor.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 1-Aug-85 13:06:04 EDT
Article-I.D.: mnetor.1668
Posted: Thu Aug  1 13:06:04 1985
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> > 	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.
>  
> This sounds a little like solutions to the problem of prostitution that
> were being proposed in my hometown of Dayton, OH a few years back.
> Since anti-prostitution laws, some said, were not controlling prostitution,
> why not just set up a red-light district and make it legal in that area?
> The proposal lost.

So then you will never know whether this would have worked or not...

> The average person does not do something because of the merits of the
> principle involved.  The average person decides how CONVENIENT it is for
> him/her to perform a certain act, and THEN does/does not perform it.
> Even with all the evidence that 'avoidance of lung cancer is a compelling
> reason to stop smoking', we are still passing laws about smoking in
> public places.  I'd think that people would not smoke simply because
> it's the reasonable thing to do, but that's apparently not so.

Yes, you're right there.  People who would be better off having abortions
are still deciding to keep the child anyway.  Do you think that there
should be laws enforcing abortion for people who obviously can't take
care of their children.  I certainly don't believe so.  Don't you think
then that maybe your analogy is a bit off?

PS: laws against public place smoking are not there to protect smokers
against themselves.  They are there to protect non-smokers against
smokers.  (OK, shoot ahead about laws against abortions being there to
protect fetuses !!!)
-- 
Sophie Quigley
{allegra|decvax|ihnp4|linus|watmath}!utzoo!mnetor!sophie