Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site pyuxd.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!gamma!pyuxww!pyuxd!rlr From: rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Rich Rosen) Newsgroups: net.abortion Subject: Re: The Status of the Fetus and Its Rights Message-ID: <1597@pyuxd.UUCP> Date: Tue, 27-Aug-85 11:26:27 EDT Article-I.D.: pyuxd.1597 Posted: Tue Aug 27 11:26:27 1985 Date-Received: Wed, 28-Aug-85 09:00:31 EDT References: <429@cmu-cs-spice.ARPA> <1546@pyuxd.UUCP> <998@brl-tgr.ARPA> Organization: Whatever we're calling ourselves this week Lines: 196 >>> Given these two statements, why shouldn't we go by "It is up to those who >>> would restrict the definition to provide hard proof that it should be >>> restricted, and to precisely what point it should be restricted."? >>> [THOMAS NEWTON] >>Because it's a stupid thing to go by. The demarcation point of life is at >>birth. It is you who wants to stretch it. [RICH ROSEN] > Ipse dixit. It's at birth. It IS. IT IS!!! [ROSENBLATT] I think the ipse dixit is in the line above. Clearly the demarcation point acknowledged by both historical standards AND scientific inquiry is at birth. Rosenblatt's claiming that I'm simply asserting "It is, it is" (how original!) sounds like whining in the face of inability to provide reasoned argument. Now, Matt, place the burden back on your own shoulders where it belongs and prove otherwise. >>> Go ahead and kill all the tapeworms, bacteria, and viruses that you want. >>> But don't kill other human beings. [T. NEWTON] >> I'm not proposing that we do. I'm proposing that similar organisms in the >> body (like fetuses) be dealt with in the same way if the person wants to. >> All the adults you refer to were once fetuses [R. ROSEN] That's right. All of us started out as fetuses. And that's the distinction between fetuses on the one hand, and tapeworms, bacteria, viruses and other parasites on the other. Even if the fetus fits the definition of a parasite ("often harmful"? How harmful? Who decides what harm is?), I refuse to treat a class of beings that once included myself as we treat germs or bugs or worms. "You" were also once a sperm cell. And/or an egg? And/or inanimate matter. This argument that "we were all once fetuses, thus fetuses should be protected" strikes me as vacuous. Matt, there seem to be a lot of things you refuse to do. No matter. >>You mean some people are DEMANDING that women remove the fetuses within them? >>Care to substantiate that? [R. ROSEN] > See Steven Mosher's article in the latest Human Life Review. Mr. Mosher is > the man who visited China as a Stanford anthropology student, wrote about > forced abortions and government infanticide that the Communists use to > enforce their one-child-per-family rule, and had his Ph.D. revoked by > frightened academics who feared that the Chinese would no longer let in > American anthropologists. Fetuses have been removed by rounding up pregnant > women, throwing them bound hand and foot into cages, loading the cages onto > trucks, tying them to operating tables, and performing abortions -- right > up to the due date. A woman has twins -- one of the babies is taken from > her and put to death. We convicted Nazis of war crimes for doing things > like that. South Africa doesn't even do things like that to control their > slave population. Yet the Marxist "wave of the future," in the country > we are trying so hard to be friends with and trade with, DEMANDS that women > remove the fetuses within them. I wasn't aware that we were (1) debating the actions of Communist or fascist countries, of which (I used to think) we were not one, or (2) debating the legitimacy of late term abortion of fetuses that are close enough to autnomous life that they can survive a removal from the womb. The fact that you bring these points up out of thin air is a testament to the vacuousness of your argument. Abortion in this country is a personal freedom issue, does a woman have the right to remove an unwanted entity from her body. Your attempt to bring in the actions of Communist countries and the like to "prove" the "badness" of abortion is crass and manipulative in the extreme. Gee, why is it that anti-abortionists always in the end seem to have to resort to this? >> Yes, there is surely a point at which a fetus is close enough to being a >> living human being that it *could*, with medical assistance, be sustained >> through the end of the fetal period to the point where it could be >> disconnected from supporting equipment, and thus be a living human being. > OK, take a seven-month fetus. It's inside the womb. Then there is a > premature birth, and it's outside the womb. Six weeks later, it can > breathe room air without additional oxygen, and leaves the incubator. > A week after that, it leaves the Intensive Care Nursery and comes home. > When does it become a human being? When it's no longer directly dependent > on it's mother's body? Before sterilization and formula were invented > less than 200 years ago, the ONLY way to feed a newborn infant was by > nursing -- the infant was completely dependent on the mother's or some > wet-nurse's body. Does that mean it wasn't human until it was weaned > -- a baby with a cry, with a smile, with a name? Aww. Still feeling the need to resort to emotional manipulation to swing your argument. I think that speaks for itself. It is an independent autonomous living being when it is capable of maintaining its own internal metabolism physically independent of other organisms. Obviously this does not include feeding, because all living organisms require sustenance. We are talking about physical autonomy and its importance as a criterion for independent life. At least I am. I'm not even sure you're listening. > Or does our seven-month premature baby become a human being when it no > longer needs others to supply it with oxygen? I can see it now: just > as the President of Harvard confers the Bachelor of Arts degree and > "welcomes you into the fellowship of educated men and women," the neo- > natologist disconnects the oxygen hose from the incubator and "welcomes > you into the fellowship of human beings." Of course, it'll be a few > years before the kid no longer needs others to supply it with food, > clothing and shelter, before it can forage for itself like the orphans > roaming the rubble during and after a war. And we will force someone > to provide those things, make no mistake about it: If the parents > can do it, we'll force them to. If not, we'll take money by force from > taxpayers, thereby forcing THEM to provide the child with the external > support it needs to survive. The anti-abortionists seek to extend this > force farther back in time, requiring the pregnant woman to keep the > fetus inside her for nine months so that it will not die. Our mothers > did as much for us, all of us. The extension of society's force backward > in time is not a difference in kind, only a difference in degree. I'm not sure what this last paragraph was supposed to mean, but let me discuss a few points. You said it yourself, Matt: "the anti-abortionists seek to EXTEND this FORCE farther back in time, REQUIRING the pregnant woman to keep the fetus inside her for nine months so that it will not [sic] die"!!!!! You've so clearly related the anti-abortionist position, I couldn't hope for a better clarification!!! You SEEK to EXTEND the FORCE upon a woman to REQUIRE her to keep the fetus inside her. How quaint. Do you have any other requirements you would like to force upon women? Cook and clean? Any requirements for other groups of people? Blacks? Jews? Red-haired people? Anyway, you said it yourself. YOU seek to EXTEND. The burden is on you, despite the fact that you offhandedly and callously denied this at the beginning of your article. That says it all. > Forcing parents to support their children is something society agrees > to because society considers it the "natural" thing to do. The parents > are not being forced to do something against their nature. The human infant, > unlike that of some animals, requires a long period of dependence. We > know we were provided for, so we don't resent having to provide for our > young -- at least, we don't resent it enough to repeal the parental > responsibility laws. Forcing pregnant women to carry their fetuses to > term is something society agreed to because society considered it the > "natural" thing to do -- the woman is not being forced to do something > against her nature. The Supreme Court overruled these societal agreements > in all 50 U. S. States. But even the Supreme Court granted enough > humanity to my seven-month fetus to allow the State to prohibit its > abortion. "Forcing pregnant women to carry fetuses" seems to have as moral weight as "forcing blacks to work as slaves in the cotton fields". I, for one, am glad that this particular brand of slavery was abolished by the high court. It represents another step on the road to human freedom. Obviously, you think otherwise, but it is clear from your earlier paragraph how you value "society's needs" above those of the individual. Allow me to relate to you that if a society is more important than people, then the society may see fit to rid itself of its people, because we "muck up the works" and get in the way of the proper "running" of society. Since a society without people is meaningles, I contend that for this reason individual human needs are more important than those of society. Societies exist to fill the needs of people, not the other way around. > I don't believe that the seven-month fetus -- my 5-year-old son Eddie -- > became human suddenly when he entered the third trimester (Roe v. Wade), > or when he was born, or when the doctor checked him out and found he > had no defects, or when he could breathe room air at six weeks, or > when he could engage in meaningful intellectual activity (e.g., con- > versation). Since you DO believe that forcing women to retain fetuses in their bodies against their will is a good thing, I think we have a reasonable right to question your beliefs on this topic. > I don't believe his humanity depended on whether he was > "wanted" -- what if a kid is so bratty that he becomes unwanted: does > that make him "unhuman" again? Biological humanity is a continuum, > as premature births -- some NOT requiring any life-support equipment -- > demonstrate. I say the law should follow biology, and all the pro-choice > arguments that set the definition of "human" so as to allow abortion on > demand have not convinced me of any discontinuity. Since the fetus cannot exist autonomously until late in the gestation period, at points previous to that it is not independently alive. Your argument would have us believe that a woman MUST keep it inside of her because you say so. I say, you say a hell of a lot of things, my friend. >>The limits to abortion do not reach into the time of pregnancy at which >>doctors have even attempted to save a fetus from such a circumstance as >>I describe, certainly before the point at which a fetus can be saved and >>expect to live a life as a human being. > Factual error which can be corrected by a counterexample: Two of my > fellow-workers had two babies in succession, each born before the end > of the second trimester, and therefore eligible for legal abortion. > Both boys lived about 11 days, during which time doctors at the Johns > Hopkins Hospital tried every method they could to save them, including > jerry-rigging new methods that had not been tried before. "Lived"? Yes, I'm sure they tried their very best. And I wish they had succeeded. But they didn't. And I think that goes to show that such fetuses cannot survive outside the womb environment. They must make use of another organism's body, existing inside of it and receiving all sustenance (nutritional and metabolic) from it. This means that they cannot continue to survive physically autonomous from the woman's body, and thus if the woman wants to remove it, she should have the right to do so. -- Life is complex. It has real and imaginary parts. Rich Rosen ihnp4!pyuxd!rlr