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From: csdf@mit-vax.UUCP (Charles Forsythe)
Newsgroups: net.abortion
Subject: Re: The Status of the Fetus and Its Rights
Message-ID: <716@mit-vax.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 27-Aug-85 03:31:17 EDT
Article-I.D.: mit-vax.716
Posted: Tue Aug 27 03:31:17 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 29-Aug-85 23:38:35 EDT
References: <429@cmu-cs-spice.ARPA> <1546@pyuxd.UUCP> <998@brl-tgr.ARPA>
Reply-To: csdf@mit-vax.UUCP (Charles Forsythe)
Organization: MIT, Cambridge, MA
Lines: 44

In article <998@brl-tgr.ARPA> matt@brl-tgr.ARPA (Matthew Rosenblatt ) writes:
>I refuse to treat a class of beings that once included myself as we
>treat germs or bugs or worms.

I don't blame you. The Bible spends a lot of ink discussing how the
humans are somehow "above" the "animals" (despite behavior to prove
otherwise :-). It's tough to accept the fact that we're just another
mammal.

>[Comparison of China's forced abortions and infantacide to the Nazis
> and the South Africans]

This is not a very enlightened remark. China is a desperate country and
has done a lot of things that would go over like a lead balloon in the
US. When you consider the overpopulation in China, you realize something
must be done. Fundamentalist scholars, like the ones who write for the
"Human Life Review" are as incapable of understanding Chinese culture as
they would be of the recently discovered Gospels of Thomas and Mary (oh,
you hadn't HEARD of them?) 

One example: the Chinese have eliminated VD from their country. They did
this by rounding up all the prostitutes and sending them to re-education
camps where they stayed until they were ready to rejoin society as
useful members. Thus, the main cause of the spread of VD was simply
eradicated. This would not work in the US because our society is not so
tightly controlled. In fact, the conservatives would have a fit that
their taxes were being spent on such a program, while the liberals would
whine about the civil rights of the women.

You can wave your little flag and scream "godless communists" until your
(red white and) blue in the face, but the fact remains that China will
probably successfully curb the worst overpopulation in the world, while
ours gets worse. If the US were to ban abortion, thus increasing our
population, they would consider it equally as immoral as their methods
of controlling population.

-- 
Charles Forsythe
CSDF@MIT-VAX
"We pray to Fred for the Hopelessly Normal
	Have they not suffered enough?"

from _The_Nth_Psalm_ in _The_Book_of_Fred_