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From: marty1@houem.UUCP (M.BRILLIANT)
Newsgroups: talk.abortion
Subject: Re: 2-year-olds vs fetuses-survival
Message-ID: <652@houem.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 7-Oct-86 11:33:54 EDT
Article-I.D.: houem.652
Posted: Tue Oct  7 11:33:54 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 11-Oct-86 10:43:36 EDT
References: Garble-garble <648@houem.UUCP> <1233@mit-trillian.MIT.EDU>
Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Holmdel NJ
Lines: 61

In <1233@mit-trillian.MIT.EDU>, melissa@mit-trillian.MIT.EDU (Melissa
Silvestre) wrote:
>In article <648@houem.UUCP> marty1@houem.UUCP writes:
>>....  you can tell a fetus from a child if you take it away from
>>its mother, give it to someone who will love it and wants to care for
>>it, and see whether it lives or dies.
>>
>>M. B. Brilliant					Marty
>
>I have to disagree with this test. Medical science is getting closer
>and closer to the point that they can keep the fetus alive from
>conception out of a womb (or transplanted to another womb).
>
>I happen to be a (female) positive eugenicist. That means I care about
>what genes I allow to continue in the race. If a mental retard
>raped me and made me pregnant, I would want that fetus killed regardless
>of what miracles of medicine could save them because I don't want
>to be biologically responsible for allowing genes that I consider
>harmful to mankind to be perpetuated.
>
>Eugenics is a very dirty word nowadays, and I expect to get flamed
>severely. But I firmly believe that I have a right to want 
>to choose the father of my children by genetic criteria. No man has
>the right to force me to bear his child if I believe his genetic
>contribution will damage either the child in particular or my
>future genetic lineage.
> ...
> .... Negative eugenicists want to sterilize
>others carrying "bad" genes. Positive eugenicists are interested only
>in trying to increase the frequency of 'good' genes (by their own
>definition) through voluntary measures ...

This is a creative response, and I find myself on the other side of the
argument from where I first thought I would be.

I still think viability outside the mother's body is a criterion for
personhood.  If the fetus can be transplanted, that means the mother
can refuse responsibility for it without killing it, and then the state
can protect it without violating its mother's freedom.

For practical purposes, the fetus has become, if viable, a person.  I
don't want the state judging the genetic fitness of a person.  I find
myself echoing the "right-to-lifers" in saying that there is no clear
dividing line between a viable transplantable fetus and a child.  If
you start judging the fitness of a transplantable fetus, you will next
judge the fitness of premature babies, then babies born at term, then
children, then adults. 

I echo their question, "where will it end?"  But I have always
answered, "it ends at birth."  When a fetus has been removed from the
womb, it has been "born" (if viable) or "aborted" (if not viable), and
its mother relinquishes control to the state.

The key phrase is "No man has the right to force me to bear his child."
Once you have had the fetus removed from your body, you are no longer
bearing it.  Killing it is, in your own terms, "negative" rather than
"positive" eugenics, and I find it unacceptable.

M. B. Brilliant					Marty
AT&T-BL HO 3D-520	(201)-949-1858
Holmdel, NJ 07733	ihnp4!houem!marty1