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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: <1704@pyuxd.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 15-Sep-85 21:16:08 EDT
Article-I.D.: pyuxd.1704
Posted: Sun Sep 15 21:16:08 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 17-Sep-85 04:20:50 EDT
References: <429@cmu-cs-spice.ARPA> <1546@pyuxd.UUCP>
Organization: Whatever we're calling ourselves this week
Lines: 59

>>... the ``pro-life'' movement philosophically maintains -- nay, *demands* --
>>that this single non-sentient cell's ``human'' rights [outweigh] the rights of
>>an adult human!  [McNEIL]

> You've got it!  ITS right to live outweighs HER right to kill it. [ROSENBLATT]

The question is why!  Because you say so.  Because you feel that your breed of
antifeminism (which you have spouted before) is ipso facto correct.  Or do
you have reasons for saying that a non-autonomous entity using the woman's
body for metabolic support has more rights to stay inside a woman's body
against her will than the woman herself has to remove the entity?  And could
you please explain them without resorting to diatribes about fetuses not
being considered for possible abortion or other straw men.

>>The conclusion, I think, is inescapable -- that human beings,
>>before their existence becomes ``real'' not potential in some
>>important sense, do *not* have the right to ``dictate'' that
>>they actually be made to exist.  *Of course*, those that cross
>>this threshold, wherever it is, must be nurtured and cherished!  

> "Real, potential human beings"?  Make up your mind -- are they real,
> or only potential?  The whole problem lies in deciding when they
> become real.

Mr. McNeil made up his mind.  Why are you saying that he has not.  He never
used the phrase "Real, potential human beings" as you misquoted him.

> Natural.  Natural.  It's natural (and usually benign) for pregnant women to
> carry to term and give birth.  It's not natural for every sperm cell, every
> egg, to give rise to an embryo, a fetus, and an individual.  It takes
> force to kill the fetus.  It would take force to establish the Brave
> New World control over germ cells in your analogy.  In both cases,
> the force would be against nature.  

In what way could anything a human being does be deemed "against nature"?  Are
human beings disjoint and separate from "nature"?  On what basis do you make
such a claim?  This argument has been used before to claim that homosexuality
and a variety of other things are "wrong", because they are "against nature". 
Even though such a statement is blatantly self-contradictory.

>>Anti-abortionists charge that allowing abortion on demand will
>>lead inevitably to legalized killing of babies, children, the
>>feeble-minded, and old people (next -- *us*).  These are the
>>``slippery slopes.''  I say this could *only* happen if we as
>>a society loose sight of what it really means to be *human*.  

> Maybe we already have lost sight.  To see how it could happen,
> and has been known to happen, read the article by C. Everett Koop, M.D.,
> starting on page 41 of Ronald Reagan's book, "Abortion and the Conscience
> of the Nation" (Nashville, Nelson, 1984).

You mean read the words of someone who claims as you do that abortion
represents the murder of a human being?  Is a basis provided for proving that,
or is it just asserted as you might do.
-- 
"to be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best night and day
 to make you like everybody else means to fight the hardest battle any human
 being can fight and never stop fighting."  - e. e. cummings
	Rich Rosen	ihnp4!pyuxd!rlr


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