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From: csdf@mit-vax.UUCP (Charles Forsythe)
Newsgroups: net.abortion
Subject: Re: Right to Procreate
Message-ID: <523@mit-vax.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 1-Aug-85 03:24:31 EDT
Article-I.D.: mit-vax.523
Posted: Thu Aug  1 03:24:31 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 4-Aug-85 05:58:54 EDT
Reply-To: csdf@mit-vax.UUCP (Charles Forsythe)
Distribution: net
Organization: MIT, Cambridge, MA
Lines: 65

In article <340@brl-tgr.ARPA> (Matthew Rosenblatt ) writes:
>In such a case, society does indeed enforce the father's responsibility
>to help financially, even to the extent of putting him in jail if he
>doesn't pay up -- as well it should.  And the judge will not listen
>to his protestations that he didn't want the baby, that he tried to
>avoid conception, that forcing him to support an unwanted child for
>eighteen or so years will interfere with his ability to do what he
>wants with his own life.

Not every paternaty suit that should be filed is filed. Not every suit
that is filed is won. A woman doctor earning $100000 (granted not that
many women doctors earn $100000) a year is not likely to win a paternity
suit.

>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.  

No, by assuming the right to have things removed from her body
(anything: organs, teeth, men AND fetuses) that she wants. That's not
such a rash assumption.


>I respect the argument that the fetus is PART of the mother (though I
>disagree), but not the argument that the fetus is a piece of property
>OWNED by the mother.  

IF it's part of the mother, who owns it? Exxon? (they own everything else)

>Try to burn down your own home -- it's statutory arson, at least in my state. 

Hmmm. Check with your local fire laws. I'll bet that you might be able
to get a permit to burn your house down. Burning a house down can harm
other people and insurance companies. Abortions don't hurt other people.

>Try to burn down your own dog 
>-- it's cruelty to animals.

Unless, of course, you intend to eat it. In that case, you are welcome
to fry the sucker. (Or are dogs more important, legally, than cows?)

>there is a causal relationship here:  Feminism is not universally accepted
>BECAUSE it would bring about a whole lot of other changes in society that
>most people in our society would not be willing to accept.

A lot of people refused to accept civil liberties for Blacks or gays.
It's not wrong to grant them.

-----
>Similarly, just because the only computer on our local net with a connection
>to the usenet news happens to belong to the Ballistic Research Laboratory,
>that doesn't mean I work for that Lab.  I don't.

I suggest, then, you edit your "Organization" line. It REALLY looks bad.

-- 
Charles Forsythe
CSDF@MIT-VAX
"You are a stupid fool."
-Wang Zeep

"I'm not a fool!"
-The Hated One