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From: matt@brl-tgr.ARPA (Matthew Rosenblatt )
Newsgroups: net.abortion
Subject: Re: The Status of the Fetus and Its Rights (Humanity Defined)
Message-ID: <2008@brl-tgr.ARPA>
Date: Wed, 9-Oct-85 09:05:10 EDT
Article-I.D.: brl-tgr.2008
Posted: Wed Oct  9 09:05:10 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 12-Oct-85 19:27:57 EDT
References: <429@cmu-cs-spice.ARPA> <1546@pyuxd.UUCP>
Organization: Ballistic Research Lab
Lines: 101

Congratulations, Mr. McNeil, on another well-thought-out article.
As before, however, I feel constrained to disagree with you.

> When we look at available societal definitions for when humanity
> begins, what do we find?  Let's look at just a *few* possibilities.  
  . . .
> 5.  Matt and other "pro-lifers" place "humanity" in the fertilized
>     egg because, for example, Matt feels that any being with his
>     own "unique genetic entity" (which may or may not actually *be*
>     unique), any being which as he put it "once included myself,"
>     simply *has* to be regarded as "human," to be protected by law.  
> 6.  *Brave New World*ers in my original article similarly regarded
>     all individual human sperm and ova as "human," because they
>     also bear the "unique genetic entity," they also "once included
>     myself," they also are just as living, etc.  ("Pro-lifers" will
>     yell, "That's ridiculous!  The cases are *not* similar!"  ;-))  
>     [M. MCNEIL]

I won't yell, "That's ridiculous!"  I'll just point out that unlike the
people who define humanity according to 1-5 above, the people who define
humanity according to 6 exist only in Mr. McNeil's *Brave New World*
hypothetical.  Moreover, the sperm contains only a part of the zygote's
genetic identity, as does the egg.  

> Can't you, can't everyone, see that these criteria are all basically
> *identical*?  They are *all equally arbitrary* -- drawn almost, one
> might say, at random from the great bazaar of characteristics which
> humans do generally share, but frequently much other life shares too.  
> One person says, "I take *this* to be human."  A second person states,
> "No, *that* is human!"  A third person declares, "You're *both* wrong.  
> *This* is what being *human* means!  (Moreover, *you're* a murderer!)"  
> [M. MCNEIL]

Well spoken, Mr. McNeil!  

> The first conclusion that I think we can *definitely* reach is that
> a sensible definition for humanity does *not* include "humans are
> living entities which may someday develop into adult human beings."  

> This definition for humanity, often cited by "pro-lifers" -- see,
> for example, Matt's "once included myself" criterion -- must be
> dismissed, precisely because the unfertilized egg and sperm share
> this property.  Virtually no one wants to give them "human rights."  
> In my judgment, allowing this criterion would lead inevitably to a
> nightmarish society such as the *Brave New World* of my article.  
> [M. MCNEIL]

As I said above, I don't accept this equation of "humanity" for the
egg or sperm with humanity for the fertilized egg.  No one in the real
world is advocating giving sperm or egg human rights.  And if by "this
criterion" Mr. McNeil means "once included myself," specifically, humanity
for the fertilized egg -- why, allowing this criterion would lead to
nothing more nor less than the outlawing of abortion on demand -- which
is what 58% of Americans polled by Newsweek (Jan. 14, 1985) favor.

> In other words, who is or could be *hurt* by the alternative social
> situations of abortion being legal or illegal?  "Pro-lifers" would
> say, "Millions of fetuses are dying horribly now.  If abortion were
> illegal, a few thousand women might die -- as they attempted to
> *murder* their babies! -- in botched abortions.  The requirement of
> minimum *hurt* obviously favors saving the fetuses who are dying!"  
> [M. MCNEIL]

So far, so good.

> There is a major problem with this point of view, and that is to
> be "hurt" requires a substantial amount of sophistication. [M. MCNEIL]

And to be "killed" does not.  Therefore, early-term embryos can be
"killed" without being "hurt," even though they are "human."  I submit
that this is another example of what pro-choicers have to do to the
generally accepted meaning of words in order to justify what they want
to be able to do to the fetus.  Just as "natural" has to be redefined
to exclude the mother's support of her fetus during pregnancy, "hurt"
has to be redefined so a fetus can be killed without being hurt!

Hippocrates, whose oath for physicians included the pledge, "I will not
give a woman a pessary to cause abortion," as well as the men (yes, men)
whose legislation outlawed abortion on demand in all 50 states before
1973, used words in their common, everyday meanings.

> So just how sophisticated *is* the fetus early on in a pregnancy?  
> Well, after fertilized eggs grow beyond their "protozoan" stage, for
> a goodly period of time the creatures fetuses most closely resemble
> anatomically and physiologically are certain types of *worm*. [M. MCNEIL]

The fetus at X minutes' development looks just like a human being at
X minutes' development is supposed to look.  There is no "little man"
inside the fertilized egg -- the fertilized egg IS the "little man."

> When millions of unthinking, unfeeling, uncaring, and worm-like deaths
> are weighed against the death of even *one* thinking, feeling, caring
> *woman* -- I know where *my* balance lies.  Millions times nothing is
> still nothing -- a woman, to coin a phrase, is infinity.  Pro-life's
> "balance" is simply a prescription for *genocide* against women! [MCNEIL]

Even if pro-lifers were actively planning to shoot to death a thousand
women a year, that would not be "genocide."  Genocide would be the
effort to wipe out ALL women.  I object to the misuse of the word.

				-- Matt Rosenblatt