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From: carole@rosevax.UUCP (Carole Ashmore)
Newsgroups: talk.abortion
Subject: Re: Reply to Carole
Message-ID: <621@rosevax.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 18-Sep-86 17:48:40 EDT
Article-I.D.: rosevax.621
Posted: Thu Sep 18 17:48:40 1986
Date-Received: Tue, 23-Sep-86 02:14:24 EDT
References: <5269@decwrl.DEC.COM>
Organization: Rosemount Inc., Eden Prairie, MN
Lines: 62
Summary: Moral inconsistencies in anti abortion position.

In article <5269@decwrl.DEC.COM>, ferrin@tonto.dec.com (Doug Ferrin) writes:
>  
> >Don't talk to ME about birth control; I'm an expert.  Abortion is
> >needed as a backup by responsible women who don't believe in having
> >accidental children.
>					Carole Ashmore
>
> 
> 		I very much sympathise with the plight of women. . .  
> 		My main	concern is that abortion is being used as a form
> 	of birth control and not for what it was intended - to save a 
> 	mothers	life, rape, incest etc.. The percentage of these is very
> 	low. 
> 		I am against abortion for convenience. I don't
> 	think an innocent third party should pay because someone wants
> 	to be sexually active and has an "accident". This blob of cells,
> 	zygote or whatever label you attach to it has never
> 	developed	into anything other than a human being in all of
> 	history. So to say that it's just a mass of tissue is incorrect.
> 	It will - if it is let to live - grow up to be a human being.
> 	Nothing else. And to stop it's development at that stage by
> 	grinding it to a pulp and throwing it away is the worst form of
> 	child abuse that I've heard of. 

Save your sympathy for the (man made) 'plight' of women.  If we manage
to hang on to our proper quota of human rights we won't need it.

Now let's examine the moral position of a man who feels that abortion
is " . . . the worst form of child abuse."  while at the same time 
feeling that it should be used " . . . to save a mother's life,
rape, incest etc."  Saving the mother's life is a moot point in 
this argument, as you can't save the fetus if the mother is
dead, so let's concentrate on just why you should claim abortion is
child abuse if the mother is "sexually active" but proper in the case
of rape or incest.

Sensible people, moral people, distinguish between fetus and child, 
not between children normally conceived and children conceived of rape
or incest.  Would you allow infanticide of a newly born child of rape?
How about physical abuse of a five year old child of incest?  No?
Then why will you allow what you, yourself term "the worst form of
child abuse" in these cases BEFORE birth?

I know why, of course, having spent twenty years arguing with
moralistic prigs who CLAIM to oppose abortion because it is the
murder of a child but are willing to forget the notion of murder
instantly if the mother was 'innocent', if she wasn't 'sexually
active' of her own free will, if she was the victim of rape or of
the intrafamilial child abuse of incest, IF IT WASN'T HER FAULT.
I know that your concern for the fetus is a sham to hide your less
socially acceptable urge to punish sexually active women with the
threat of unwanted pregnancy; and anyone else who sees these two
arguments side by side should know it too.  

There are some people in the world who really believe that abortion is
the murder of a child and oppose it in all cases; you are not one of
them.  I can respect these people's moral position, even while
disagreeing with them.  Your moral position is worthy of nothing but
disgust.  To hell with "Have a nice day" (as you are forever saying in 
your signature).  Examine your conscience and have a lousy day.

					Carole Ashmore