Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site brl-tgr.ARPA
Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!harvard!seismo!brl-tgr!matt
From: matt@brl-tgr.ARPA (Matthew Rosenblatt )
Newsgroups: net.abortion
Subject: Re: The Status of the Fetus and Its Rights
Message-ID: <1738@brl-tgr.ARPA>
Date: Thu, 26-Sep-85 10:28:56 EDT
Article-I.D.: brl-tgr.1738
Posted: Thu Sep 26 10:28:56 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 1-Oct-85 08:29:18 EDT
References: <429@cmu-cs-spice.ARPA> <1546@pyuxd.UUCP> <1571@brl-tgr.ARPA> <1764@pyuxd.UUCP>
Organization: Ballistic Research Lab
Lines: 68

>>I told everyone that abortion is a question of values.  MY values tell me
>>so, so I say so.  YOUR values tell you that the woman's right to remove the
>>entity outweighs the entity's right to go on using her body for support.
>>It goes back to my very first posting:  WHOSE right to control her own body?
>>Can you PROVE than every person has the right to control his own body?  Or
>>is it just something you assume as a basic, fundamental right?  [ROSENBLATT]

> Not assume.  I've said this time and again:  if society has rights over you
> and your person, if society is more important than individuals, than if
> society "decided" that we as human beings were getting in the way of the
> smooth running of society (as we often do), then it would have the "right"
> to get rid of us all.  And thus have no humans left in "society".  Doesn't
> make a lot of sense, does it?  Furthermore, as I have said before, saying
> "these are my values" is not enough.  A Nazi can proclaim "these are my
> values", but we can show rationally where those values are founded on lies,
> falsehoods, and anit-human ideals.  Why don't we go to the root of YOUR
> values, and see what they're founded on?  

1.  Just because society has some rights over you and your person, it does not
follow that society has all rights, including the right to get rid of you.

2.  I never said that society is more important than individuals.

3.  I believe that the main justification for the existence of "government,"
the organized regulator of "society," is to protect the weak from the strong.
And I believe that society's right to protect the weak from the strong very
often will interfere with the individual rights of the strong.  For example,
protecting the weak fetus interferes with the privacy rights of the rela-
tively stronger pregnant woman and her abortionist.

4.  And where did I get the idea that protecting the weak from the strong
is a good idea?  For one thing, it's common sense -- I don't want someone
stronger than me clobbering me or my family.  For another thing, consider
the following quote, not for any real or imagined authority of its source,
but as a policy statement, on its own merits:

	"Is not this the fast that I have chosen?
	 To loose the fetters of wickedness,
	 To undo the bands of the yoke,
	 And to let the oppressed go free,
	 And that ye break every yoke?
	 Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry,
	 And that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house?
	 When thou seest the naked, that thou cover him,
	 And that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh?"

			-- Isaiah 58:7-8

Sure, the Nazi's values are founded on lies, falsehoods, and anti-human
ideals.  But what about the above verses?  Are they, too, to be considered
lies, falsehoods, and anti-human ideals?  Where's the falsity in protecting
the weak from the strong?  

5.  The question is not whether society will interfere with the rights of
individuals to protect the weak from the strong, but to what extent.  That
is what the net.abortion debate is all about.  You can argue that the 
fetus is not an "individual" deserving of "protection," and that is what
you do argue.  But that's a value judgment on your part, and I'm sure you
define "individual" in such a way as to exclude the fetus.

6.  Your worry about what society might do if it decided that we as
human beings were getting in the way of the smooth running of society
rings a bell, however:  According to the pro-choicers, if a woman decides
that her fetus is getting in the way of the smooth running of her life
(e.g., would set her back 5-10 years), then she would have the "right"
to get rid of it.  

				-- Matt Rosenblatt


Brought to you by Super Global Mega Corp .com