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From: desjardins@h-sc1.UUCP (marie desjardins)
Newsgroups: net.abortion
Subject: Re: Right to Procreate
Message-ID: <488@h-sc1.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 31-Jul-85 20:53:17 EDT
Article-I.D.: h-sc1.488
Posted: Wed Jul 31 20:53:17 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 2-Aug-85 21:43:26 EDT
References: Articles 1499,1501,1503,1504,1509 <340@brl-tgr.ARPA>
Distribution: net
Organization: Harvard Univ. Science Center
Lines: 51

Matt: I am curious to know how you define feminism, since you admit 
you are not a feminist.  Do you mean that you do not believe that 
men and women should have equal opportunities?  I find it hard to
believe that any reasonably educated or intelligent person 
could believe this.  (You are, aren't you?) (By the way, I doubt 
Todd considers being called a feminist an insult; I consider it 
quite a compliment!)

You refer to "society enforcing the father's responsibility to
help financially."  Are you aware of the percentage of divorced
mothers who have been awarded child support and do not receive
any?  It is quite high, and the percentage of those who do not
pay child support that are actually put in jail is very low.
There has been a discussion about this in net.women, along with
possible legal solutions, but legislators seem to feel more
strongly that women should be forced to bear these children 
than that men should be forced to help support them.  In any
case, none of this applies to unmarried mothers.

> The difference between interfering with his life for 18 years, and
> interfering with the pregnant woman's life for 9 months, is that it's
> her body.  If you add "...and therefore she has the right to do what
> she wants with it," which is Marie Desjardin Park's and Charles 
> Forsythe's point, then you are trying to establish the right to abort
> by assuming the right to abort.  

Sorry, I disagree.  I start with "A person has a right to do what
she or he wants with her or his body."  That is assumption #1.
Assumption #2 (which you apparently disagree with; ok, I will probably
never convince you so I won't even try anymore) is that "A fetus
is part of the mother's body until it is born."  THEREFORE, the
right to abort is established.  I don't think this argument is
circular at all.  I am perfectly willing to grant you the privilege
(as opposed to right) of attempting to remove that fetus from the
mother's body with a minimum of damage and subsequently to attempt
to maintain the life of that fetus.  This seems like a pretty
reasonable compromise.  I would probably even say that perhaps
this "living abortion" (i.e. removal of the living fetus -- what 
else would you call it; early delivery?) may be postponed until
the Nth month (2nd trimester?), so that medical technology can deal 
with this early birth (although they probably can't do it very early 
at all at this point; so get cracking, you Republican anti-feminist 
doctors!) as long as the pregnancy to that point will not significantly 
interfere with the mother's ability to work and continue her life as she
normally would.

Gee, I think I said all that damn well.  By the way, it's Marie
desJardins Park, but you can call me Marie (even you, Matt,
I'm feeling magnamimous tonight! :-) ).

marie desJardins park