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From: cc@locus.ucla.edu (Oleg "Kill the bastards" Kiselev)
Newsgroups: talk.abortion
Subject: Re: It's still mine
Message-ID: <1591@curly.ucla-cs.ARPA>
Date: Thu, 18-Sep-86 18:36:14 EDT
Article-I.D.: curly.1591
Posted: Thu Sep 18 18:36:14 1986
Date-Received: Tue, 23-Sep-86 03:35:37 EDT
References: <5152@decwrl.DEC.COM> <madvax.444> <1091@ogcvax.UUCP>
Reply-To: oac6.oleg@LOCUS.UCLA.EDU (Oleg "Kill the bastards" Kiselev)
Organization: Right down the hall, on your left (UCLA Computer Club)
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In article <1091@ogcvax.UUCP> pase@ogcvax.UUCP (Douglas M. Pase) writes:
>We are all responsible for our own actions.  Everyone has the freedom to
>choose whether or not to have a child.  That freedom is exercised when a couple
>chooses to have or not have sexual intercourse (birth control aside). Certainly
>it is your body and your choice, but your choice should be exercised before the
>child is conceived, not after.  We are all able to choose our actions, but not
>the consequences of our actions.

Sorry, you are wrong on several points.

Not "EVERYONE" has "the freedom to ... have a child". Men are unable to give
birth (take that up with your deities if you are displeased). And women (if
the views like yours triumph) will not be able to choose NOT to have a child
by methods other than celebacy -- birth control devices fail occasionally,
not all pregnancies are results of a planned sexual encounter (you have heard
of rape, haven't you?). And if people's bodies are their own property, 
regardless of anyone's views nobody has a right to LEGISLATE enforcement of
childbearing.

>Suppose we say abortions are moral. Suppose we allow abortions for convenience.
>"It's too inconvenient for me to be pregnant right now, I think I'll have an
>abortion."  I see no vast difference between that and "It's too inconvenient
>for me to have children right now, I think I'll terminate my 2 year old."  You
>may argue that the 2 year old is a person and the fetus is not (which in my
>opinion is mere semantic drivel), but certainly they are both alive.

This is nonsense. A fetus (up to 3rd trimester) can not exist without its
mother's body. A 2 year old can be cared for by many agencies other than
its biological mother. A fetus is very different in that respect -- it has no
independent life of its own. Analogies to people on lung/kidney machines are
invalid -- ANY such machine can sustain a life, if one machine "refuses" to 
work, another one can be used. It just does not work that way with fetuses,
not at the current level of technology and medical science. Moral and legal
implication of "trasvival" (as someone called it here) are a different topic,
extensively covered in net.abortion few months ago.

>The major issue here is "at what stage does a human life aquire the right to
>remain alive?"  Under what conditions does one's right to life supercede the
>convenience of another?  I don't recall the Bill of Rights mentioning anywhere
>a "right to a convenient life".  I do recall a right to "life, liberty and the
>pursuit of happiness".

If you look at the statistics and sociological data on teen pregnancies and
the fates of the unwanted pregnancy children you will not that your rhetoric
sounds like a mockery of human suffering, not a noble defence of Life.

				Oleg Kiselev, HASA "A" division