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From: holloway@drivax.UUCP (Bruce Holloway)
Newsgroups: net.kids
Subject: Re: A POLL?   FETUS: "it", "he" or "she
Message-ID: <320@drivax.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 10-Mar-86 12:30:28 EST
Article-I.D.: drivax.320
Posted: Mon Mar 10 12:30:28 1986
Date-Received: Wed, 12-Mar-86 22:20:24 EST
References: <9535@ucla-cs.ARPA> <8100001@uiucdcsp> <549@watdragon.UUCP>
Reply-To: holloway@drivax.UUCP (Bruce Holloway)
Organization: Digital Research, Monterey, CA
Lines: 33

In article <549@watdragon.UUCP> rggoebel@watdragon.UUCP (Randy Goebel LPAIG) writes:
>> 
>> I usually call a fetus a "he" because "he" is the more commonly used
>> pronoun when an unknown PERSON is being discussed.  Would you call
>> a friend an "it" (note: I said friend; I know many its :-)?
>----------------------
>	Our third child is still enwombed, but has a name: Kelly.  We call the
>fetus Kelly.  Our other children, Kari and Jodi, were also named before
>they became disenwombed.  We never had to use "it" "she" or "he" as we had
>a name.  It didn't matter about sex; the names were fairly ambivalent.  I
>don't think this is a radical or particularly novel idea, but I've never
>found anyone who has done it?

We called our daughter Allyson "Toid" until she was born. It gave a useful
handle to describe our baby with out personalizing it too much. Our parents
couldn't understand why we's name an unborn baby "Toid". Well, it's short
for Fetoid, of course. My mother kept calling me "Bonnie Jean" before I
was born. I think I turned out male to spite her more than anything else.

And yes, we DID think of Allyson as an "it" before she was born. The
alternatives really don't make much sense.

-- 

+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|Whatever I write are not the opinions or policies of Digital Research, Inc.,|
|and probably won't be in the foreseeable future.                            |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+

Bruce Holloway

....!ucbvax!hplabs!amdahl!drivax!holloway
(I'm not THAT Bruce Holloway, I'm the other one.)