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Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!ttidca!ttidcc!regard
From: regard@ttidcc.UUCP (Adrienne Regard)
Newsgroups: net.abortion
Subject: dogs, cats, and kids
Message-ID: <739@ttidcc.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 30-Sep-85 14:58:28 EDT
Article-I.D.: ttidcc.739
Posted: Mon Sep 30 14:58:28 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 2-Oct-85 08:20:10 EDT
Organization: TTI, Santa Monica, CA.
Lines: 39

>aardvark@nmtvax.UUCP (Bill Gallagher) writes:
>>If nothing has been put into the fetus, nothing comes out.
>>The fetus becomes a thinking being (rather than an instinctual)
>>when it is able to apply its experience and reason. Otherwise
>>it's as eloquent as Fido. Experience *does* start in the womb,
>>but if the fetus never gets to see the real world (ie aborted)
>>it won't make any difference since it never knew it.
>
>Well, there are laws to protect dogs as well as humans, and I'm rather attached
>to mine. He understands a small subset of English words (40 maybe) and has
>real emotional depth.. I'm also attached to my cat who understand intonation,
>and if someone intentionally killed her I would react quite violently..
>(perhaps even if it wasn't intentional..) I want to give the fetus more then
>benefit of a doubt, I want to protect it beyond the shadow of a doubt.
>Conception is obviously beyond the shadow of a doubt, 12 weeks is as well I
>think. I hope this is what lawmakes had in mind when they set a limit on how
>late an abortion can occur..
>Myke Reynolds

Two issues here -- public policy and personal response.

I happen to be 7 months pregnant.  Fetus already has a name, and likes to
tap dance late at night -- evidence of personality already.  BUT. . .

If my doctor bungled my last pre-delivery exam and slit little fetus'
throat, I'd be (hopefully understandably) angry enough to be moved to
violence, myself.  HOWEVER, as a matter of public policy, the doctor would
be guilty of something less than murder.  Personally, I'd want the greatest
revenge and/or punishment that the law would allow, but I couldn't string
him up for "murdering" something that was still only a potential. (For
instance, it could still have died in the normal course of delivery.)

Many fetuses survive after 7 months gestation and pre-mature birth.
Because they CAN doesn't mean that we can pass laws (public policy) on what
statistically SHOULD be the outcomes, and declare it human as of that 7
months date (or any other arbitrary date).  That perhaps it CAN survive
outside the mother's body doesn't mean anything, unless it IS surviving
outside the mother's body.  It isn't a baby til it's born.


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