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From: george@scirtp.UUCP (George Greene Jr.)
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc,talk.abortion
Subject: Re: Best for Others?
Message-ID: <637@scirtp.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 13-Oct-86 21:40:42 EDT
Article-I.D.: scirtp.637
Posted: Mon Oct 13 21:40:42 1986
Date-Received: Thu, 16-Oct-86 19:04:37 EDT
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Xref: linus talk.religion.misc:519 talk.abortion:144


I'll grant a tip of the hat to a worthy adversary here.
> 
> I don't recall any societies where murder is condoned for the
> sake of convenience.  Sure there are/were societies where babies
> were murdered for religious ceremonies or entire villages were
> slaughtered for reasons of war but I do not know of any society
> where it was acceptable for a child to be killed for reasons of
> convenience.
> 
> That's what abortion is.  A matter of convenience.

You have stated the pro-life position well and clearly.
Your side of the argument is blessed with the shorter defenses. 
My main points against this particular formulation of it are:

1) Most of the societies were patriarchal, but most of the inconvenience
was borne by the mothers and their misbegotten children.  You can bet
that if fathers had had to share that inconvenience, "child murders"
would've been a lot more common historically. 

2) In some cultures, since  children are your property and have to obey
their fathers, it is true that fathers with more kids have more workers,
and can earn more wealth by managing them productively.
This is another reason why patriarchal societies would
tend to cheat deserving women out of their abortions.  This is the main
reason why birth control is so impossible in Kenya and India today.  It
is also the main reason why lessening population growth has zero force
as an argument in favor of abortion.

3) The mere fact that you haven't read about societies where child murder
or abandonment for "convenience" was common  doesn't imply that they
didn't exist.  As Christians should know, Moses was abandoned for precisely
that reason.  I'm sure the history or soc. majors could help you on that
one. 




> >>talking about morality in society, not legality.  Morally, you
> >>can't do anything but consider the fetus a "person." > > > >What is
moral is what a person or group accepts as being moral. > >If it is the
custom of a society to eat their first-born (to use > >an extreme case),
then this is morally okay to them, and we cannot > >say they are wrong.
We abhor the practice, and to everyone in our > >society (I hope), it is
morally wrong.  But if we were > >in their society, we would be morally
violating the custom if we did not do the > >same.