Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site cisden.UUCP Path: utzoo!decvax!genrad!panda!talcott!harvard!seismo!hao!nbires!boulder!cisden!john From: john@cisden.UUCP (John Woolley) Newsgroups: net.abortion Subject: Re: a task for those opposed to abortion Message-ID: <387@cisden.UUCP> Date: Wed, 8-Jan-86 11:38:20 EST Article-I.D.: cisden.387 Posted: Wed Jan 8 11:38:20 1986 Date-Received: Sun, 12-Jan-86 07:30:26 EST References: <1100@oddjob.UUCP> <380@cisden.UUCP> Reply-To: john@cisden.UUCP (John Woolley) Distribution: na Organization: ConTel Information Systems, Denver Lines: 87 In article <380@cisden.UUCP> salazar@cisden.UUCP (Kathy Salazar) writes: >Initially, when I am trying to analyze an ethical dilemma, I try to reverse >the situation to see if it still holds true. > >In reversing the abortion issue... >you would have abortion forced on people! >This obviously is silly and unreasonable since it would be forcing an operation >(like removing a kidney) on people who don't want it. I don't think I understand your point. It would seem that, if anything, you're arguing against abortion here. By the same logic, we could invest- igate whether murder (of adults) should be permitted -- we reverse the question and ask whether people should be forced to commit murders. Clearly not. But I don't think we've proven anything one way or the other. >If abortion is illegal... >what do you do with someone who is set on having one...arrest them? >My husband is a deputy in a county jail, they put prisoners who are >set on 'hurting' themselves in solitary confinement. Not a nice place, >You have no light, no clothes, two mattresses and a hole in the floor. >Would you have wanted to have a mother live like this until the baby was >born...regardless of whether it were put up for adoption? I don't think *anyone*, *ever*, suggested this. I'd prefer penalties against abortionists, who rack up substantial incomes from their killing. As an aside, notice that even pro-choice people refer to the pregnant women as "mothers". If that's not a person in there, just what is it that they're "mothers" of? >Fact 1; >There will be abortions, legal or not, there always have been. There is no >possible way to enforce the illegality of abortion. Just make them safer. The same applies to murder of anyone else -- "There will be murders, legal or not; there always have been." A law does not prevent the evil entirely; nobody ever thought it did. But a law can certainly discourage and reduce the incidence of evil, as can be plainly seen from the *huge* increase in the number of abortions done each year in the U. S. since 1972. >Fact 2; >It is a moral issue and only individuals make that decision. You can't >force morality on people who don't want it. And again, so is murder a moral issue. If some Nazi actually thinks it's okay to go around shooting Jews, I'm not going to argue that he should be allowed to because, after all, you can't force morality on people who don't want it. I don't care whether the Nazi *wants* to be subject to my morality -- I'm going to do the best I can to impose it on him and thereby protect his victims. >Fact 3; >The world is not the same place as 2000 years ago, or even 100 years ago. >The population is increasing too fast, look at China, learn a lesson. Many countries are now reproducing at far below "replacement" rates, the U. S. at just slightly above. And you beg the question. Suppose you're entirely right, suppose there are "too many" people (whatever we mean by that) -- just how is it right to alleviate the problem by killing some of them? ("Comrade, sometimes the individual must be sacrificed for the good of the whole.") >Fact 4; >Knowledge is needed to make your own decision, for or against abortion. No disagreement here at all between us. >FINAL WORDS: >The morality of a society might best be defined by the way the poor >are treated. Let's give more choices to people, encourage everyone to think >for themselves and do the 'right' thing. And these foetuses, these children, who are being killed by abortions -- who are they, the rich? If they don't qualify as poor in the sense of disenfranchised, ignored, voiceless, powerless, just who does? "Let's give more choices to people". Okay. Let the kids get old enough to decide, and then let them decide for themselves whether they want to be killed. That way we wouldn't be *imposing* our choices on them. Now *there's* a pro-Choice position I could endorse. -- Peace and Good!, Fr. John Woolley "The heart has its reasons that the mind does not know." -- Blaise Pascal