Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/17/84; site mhuxr.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mfs
From: mfs@mhuxr.UUCP (SIMON)
Newsgroups: net.abortion
Subject: Re: Equal Access to Pleasure
Message-ID: <424@mhuxr.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 8-Sep-85 10:53:10 EDT
Article-I.D.: mhuxr.424
Posted: Sun Sep  8 10:53:10 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 9-Sep-85 04:33:31 EDT
References: <1261@brl-tgr.ARPA>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill
Lines: 33

> Matt Rosenblatt writes:
> Consistent "Responsibility" positions:
> 
> 	1)  No abortion on demand for the pregnant woman;
> 	2)  Enforcement of the father's obligation to support his child.
> 
> [Rosenblatt cites the opposite to 1 and 2 as "Non Responsibility" positions]
> 
> I support the consistent "Responsibility" positions, as does the Reagan
> administration.

Valid views, but they do not solve the problem in cases where the father
is indigent, can't be found or unknown. The third case might occur in cases
of rape, or where the mother is a prostitute (whatever one may think of these
women's profession, their pregnancies are real.) When the father just does
not have the money to support the child (poor people are fertile too) or
cannot be found despite the best efforts of Government, where does that
leave mother and child?

So a truly consistent "Responsibility" position should be amended by:
	3)  Availability of public funds for raising the children of
	    unwanted pregnancies where the option to terminate same was
	    not available because of public policies

Then the pro-life viewpoint would become a viable public policy option.
This pro-choicer at least would look at it as viable. The issue of whether
an abortion is the private decision of the pregnant woman and is thus
outside the realm of public intervention would remain unresolved, but
the debate would then be framed by two viable policy options.

That is progress in my book. Thank you, Mr Rosenblatt, for seeking it.

Marcel Simon