Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.3 4.3bsd-beta 6/6/85; site gitpyr.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!harpo!whuxlm!akgua!gatech!gitpyr!myke From: myke@gitpyr.UUCP (Myke Reynolds) Newsgroups: net.abortion Subject: Re: I was a teenaged pregancy Message-ID: <747@gitpyr.UUCP> Date: Tue, 10-Sep-85 18:12:33 EDT Article-I.D.: gitpyr.747 Posted: Tue Sep 10 18:12:33 1985 Date-Received: Thu, 12-Sep-85 23:36:20 EDT References: <711@gitpyr.UUCP> <390@scirtp.UUCP> <5839@cbscc.UUCP> <740@gitpyr.UUCP> <5853@cbscc.UUCP> Reply-To: myke@gitpyr.UUCP (Myke Reynolds) Distribution: net Organization: School of ICS, Georgia Tech Lines: 88 In article <5853@cbscc.UUCP> pmd@cbscc.UUCP (Paul Dubuc) writes: >My point was that the circumstances that surround birth have no bering >whatsoever on whether abortion is justified. If human life has any value >the circumstances under which that life is born don't affect that value >any more than the color of the child's skin. Human life has value, but a fetus is not a human life, it is the potential of a human life. >In what sense would you never have existed? Abortion is not done on >an non-existent human. Clashing definitions; I don't mean biological existance, I mean cognative existance. >If we can kill people instantly and painlessly so that they "never knew what >hit them", is the killing then justified? Your argument seemed to imply that >since the fetus may not realize she is being killed, it is therefore acceptable >to kill her. Why just the fetus? Poor analogy, being unaware does not make one non-cognizant. >My position is that killing one's child, wheter born yet or not, is not >and acceptable solution to the problems surrounding pregnancy. It certainly >is not the only solution. Your solution is to force the mother to have a child. Bravo. Might I take a guess at your social status? Middle-middle to upper class aye? Its not an acceptable solution to you because it doesn't happen to be one of *YOUR* problems. You can afford to raise a child under any condition or send your daughter out of the country for an abortion. If this were a perfect sociaty I would be the first person to sign the bill to outlaw abortions, it is far from it however. If there were solutions there that were almost as good there wouldn't be any abortions! >What line of demarkation are you imposing? What is the basis for that line? >Sentience? How do you define it and why is it a legitimate dividing line? I proposed no line of demarcation. It certainly wouldn't be sentience.. A case could be made for it being after birth. It would be completely arbitrary. What I was arguing is where it shouldn't be, at conception. That one celled animal contains the genetic pattern of an individual, so do most of the cells in your body...which leads to... >"Creating" a human being from a skin cell is still in the realm of science >fiction. For all we know it may always be in that realm. I see no cumpulsion >to base our ethics on the possibilities that we may dream up, even if I >thought it would make a difference. When, and if, human clones become >reality, we can deal with it. I'm quite sure you will be able to claim your moral code works under all situations. I'm not going to patronize you with interludes about what people like you thought of the idea of walking on the moon 20 years before it happened. 4 years ago when I was in grammer school in "science" class we were shown a biology film. It discussed such things as artificial insemination, surrogate impregnation (transfering fertilized eggs), and cloning. Examples of all 3 were shown. The first 2 in the cattle industry and the last on salimanders. I'm not quite sure what to make of someone who doesn't have a grammer school child's knowledge of the subject he makes sweeping statements about.. >I don't believe your concept of "social good" is as clear to everyone >as it seems to you. It seems rather murky and vague to me. How do you >support the value or your own life vis-a-vis the fetus with the concept >of "social good". Ok, you tell me how forcing women to have unwanted children and women dying of improperly preformed abortions is a service to sociaty? I've already said this a few times before, but here goes again: The life of the living is more important then the potential life of the non-existent. If you can make the abstraction that a fetus is human, even though it has none of the features that we consider human, only the knowledge that it will eventually have them, then the abstraction that an abortion is just as thought the woman hadn't gotten pregnant is equally as valid. If thats the way you want to look at it, thats fine. Nobody is forcing their OPINIONS on you. It is you who is trying to force a VERY opinionated opinion on everyone else in the world. Such intellectual vanity is amazing. -- Myke Reynolds Office of Telecommunications and Networking Georgia Insitute of Technology, Atlanta Georgia, 30332 ...!{akgua,allegra,amd,hplabs,ihnp4,seismo,ut-ngp}!gatech!gitpyr!myke "Never underestimate the power of human stupidity." -Lazarus Long