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From: rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Rich Rosen)
Newsgroups: net.abortion
Subject: Re: The Status of the Fetus and Its Rights
Message-ID: <1656@pyuxd.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 7-Sep-85 19:23:13 EDT
Article-I.D.: pyuxd.1656
Posted: Sat Sep  7 19:23:13 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 9-Sep-85 01:30:02 EDT
References: <447@cmu-cs-spice.ARPA>
Organization: Whatever we're calling ourselves this week
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> I have no desire to engage in extended name-calling sessions with Rich Rosen,
> [NEWTON]

This is news.  And it is at odds with past experience.

> so I will simply reply to the following argument:

>>>With slavery, the stake was 'as soon as we recognize blacks as human, a
>>>lot more people are going to be against slavery and slavery may become
>>>illegal'.

>>Blacks were not recognized as not-human, the law simply made it legal to
>>own humans as slaves.  That's why the law mentioned nothing about race when
>>slavery was abolished.  It also stated that no person should be discriminated
>>against due to race.  It is clear that in neither case had it been assumed
>>that blacks were not human, at least not in the eyes of the law.

>        "  An equally durable myth is that Negroes, in contrast to
>         peoples of other races, possess certain racial traits which
>         uniquely fitted them for bondage, and which created in the South
>         a lasting "race problem."  As other defenses of slavery became
> 	increasingly untenable, ninteenth-century Southerners gave special
> 	emphasis to this racist argument.  Doctors, scientists, and pseudo-
> 	scientists--phrenologists had a substantial following -- found a
> 	physiological basis for alleged temperamental and intellectual
> 	differences.  Dr Samuel W. Cartrwright, of Louisiana, argued that
> 	'the visible difference in skin pigmentation also extended to "the
>         membranes, the muscles, the tendons, and . . . [to] all the fluids
> 	and secretions.  Even the negro's brain and nerves, the chyle and
> 	all the humors, are tinctured with a shade of the pervading darkness."
> 	Dr. Josiah C. Nott, of Mobile, was the leader of a small group who
> 	carried racism to the extreme position of denying that Negros and
> 	whites belonged to the same species."
	
"A small group who carried racism to the extreme position".  NOT the mainstream
line of thought, which DID in fact claim things like that which you mention
above.  Like blacks were "fit" for slavery and bondage.  Which sounds a lot
like "women are fit for housework and childbirth" (a statement that Matt
Rosenblatt, who find feminism repugnant, might agree with).  But it doesn't
say squat about blacks being non-human.  As you yourself said, that was an
extreme position held by a small group.  Contrast this with accepted notions
among the scientific community about what is life and what is not, and direct
application of those notions in a non-emotional or subjective way.
-- 
"iY AHORA, INFORMACION INTERESANTE ACERCA DE... LA LLAMA!"
	Rich Rosen    ihnp4!pyuxd!rlr