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From: desjardins@h-sc1.UUCP (marie desjardins)
Newsgroups: net.abortion
Subject: Re: Are Laws what is really needed?
Message-ID: <494@h-sc1.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 2-Aug-85 11:05:58 EDT
Article-I.D.: h-sc1.494
Posted: Fri Aug  2 11:05:58 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 3-Aug-85 21:01:47 EDT
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Organization: Harvard Univ. Science Center
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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.

But perhaps it should have won?  This is something I discussed in
a class I took last semester on the Criminal Justice System.  I
feel fairly strongly that it is more important for people (i.e.
prostitutes) not to be abused (by pimps, customers, etc.) than
for our laws to forbid something based on (to my mind) a silly and
hypocritical morality.  Same goes for abortions.

> > 	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.  
> 
> 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.

I have to agree with Don here (single > ) but I think there are
other arguments against outlawing abortion.

marie desjardins park