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From: garys@bunker.UUCP (Gary M. Samuelson)
Newsgroups: net.abortion
Subject: Re: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness
Message-ID: <1109@bunker.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 21-Mar-86 10:28:44 EST
Article-I.D.: bunker.1109
Posted: Fri Mar 21 10:28:44 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 22-Mar-86 08:01:31 EST
References: <11560@watnot.UUCP> <9534@ucla-cs.ARPA> <610@bunkerb.UUCP> <9790@ucla-cs.ARPA>
Reply-To: garys@bunker.UUCP (Gary M. Samuelson)
Distribution: na
Organization: Bunker Ramo, Trumbull Ct
Lines: 68
Summary: 

In article <9790@ucla-cs.ARPA> cs111olg@ucla-cs.UUCP (Oleg Kiselev (the student incarnation)) writes:
>In article <610@bunkerb.UUCP> garys@bunkerb.UUCP (Gary M. Samuelson) writes
>in answer to my article <9534@ucla-cs.ARPA>:
>>>I believe the life of the mother is of a far greater import.
>>Why?  Proof by vigorous assertion?
>
>No. Mother is (1) alive, (2) person, (3) human being, (4) protected by
>the laws of the land which reflect the popular opinion, (5) has some
>ties with other people.

(1) (2) (3):  So is the fetus.  You deny this, at least by
implication.  This is what I was thinking about when I spoke
of proof by vigorous assertion.

(4) One of the issues here is whether the laws of the land should be
changed to protect the fetus.  So you are in effect saying that the
the laws should not protect the fetus because they currently do not.

And touching popular opinion, before Roe v. Wade, the laws of the
land reflected the popular opinion which was that abortions should be,
in general, prohibited.  In fact, within two or three months before
Roe v. Wade, two states had passed by popular referendum anti-abortion
legislation.  But it only takes five Supreme Court justices to overrule
millions of voters.  Of course, I think that popular opinion is wrong,
so again you are saying that the status quo should be maintained simply
because it is the status quo.

>This last one(5) is the most important one ofthem all. As a grown and 
>(hopefuly) mature PERSON, the mother has a societal value in terms of
>her own productivity and the influence she has on productivity of other
>PERSONS. Her death (like removal of anything which has non-material value
>[by non-material I mean emotional,expectational,attachment or aestetic values])
>will cause some people grief and will therefore harm them, harming their
>productivity. That's bad for society, bad for individual.

Some people grieve because of abortions -- why isn't their grief
important?

I shudder to think what life would be like in a society where my right
to live was contingent on whether that society -- no doubt as embodied
by a few bureaucrats -- thought I had value.

Are you other pro-choicers listening?  This is one of the things that
leads pro-lifers to compare pro-choicers to ***** -- the fact that
society can decide who has "value" and who does not.  If society
decides that **** have no value, than society can, and indeed should,
get rid of them.  (Asterisks used in an effort to make the point
without causing to many reflexive flames.)

Why is "society" important at all?  The only things that really
benefit "society" are those which benefit those individuals which
are part of "society."

>An abortion causes no such commotion in people's lives. If the fetus was
>wanted (and had that non-material value of people's love and anticipation)
>it would have never been aborted in the first place!

Why should "wantedness" be a criterion for the right to life?
Alternatively, why would you not apply the same criterion to
adult humans?

>If that was "Proof by vigorous asertion" than be it. 

Well, some of it was proof by vigorous assertion, and some was
circular.  The rest was a confusion of a group with members of
the group (I don't remember the technical term).

Gary Samuelson