Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc,alt.rush-limbaugh,alt.politics.bush,alt.politics.clinton,alt.politics.elections,talk.abortion,alt.sex
Subject: Re: Another Dehumanizer Steps Forward....
From: mlbruce@husc8.harvard.edu (Matthew Bruce)
Date: 2 Oct 92 16:34:49 GMT

ray@netcom.com (Ray Fischer) writes:


>I'm beginning to suspect that the pro-life position nearly _requires_
>a considerable degree of ignorance.  I don't know of any other reason
>they keep posting and claiming such utter nonsense.  Mr. Bruce manages
>to reach new heights of ignorance.

"You deserve a flame today..."

>mlbruce@husc8.harvard.edu (Matthew Bruce) writes ...
>[...]
>>and/or Biology classes, I'll cut quick to the punch-line: I, as I would assume
>>a pretty fair majority of people do, believe that life begins at conception.

>Wrong.  Best guess: life began 3.5 billion years ago (3.5 thousand million
>for the Brits).

>> Various ograns take more time than others to develop, but I
>>believe I heard once that brain waves and/or similar signs of life appear
>>within hours of conception. In any case, of all the plausible arguments in

>Or something like that anyway, right?  :-)

>After a few hours, the embryo consists of nothing more than a couple
>(nearly identical) cells.  No heart, no brain, no nervous system, no 
>digestive system, no limbs, head, eyes, ears, mouth, chest, genitals, 
>liver, stomach, kidneys, or anything else that people generally expect
>a person to have.  Not exactly enough material for brain waves or a
>heartbeat.

>>favor of allowing abortion, it's disappointing to see someone resort to an
>>implausible one, that of denying the salient differences between a fertilized
>>egg and a seperate egg and sperm.

>Of course there are differences.  There are differences between an egg and
>a zygote, a zygtoe and an embryo, an embryo and a fetus, a fetus and a 
>newborn, and a newborn and an adult.
A thousand pardons for trying to oversimplify biology in a 2:00 A.M. post.
How exactly, though, do you differentiate between a fetus and a newborn
other than the fetus' being still attached by umbilical cord.
(Hypothetical question all you woman-controls-her-body-at-all-costs
advocates: Suppose the baby has just been delivered, but the umbilical
cord not yet cut. This baby still derives its nutrition from, and is
indeed attached to its mother. As such, until the cord is cut, the baby is
no less a part of the mother's body than it was during pregnancy. Would
not your arguments make it perfectly acceptable to kill the baby then and
there, on the grounds that a woman should have the right to control her
own body?
 
>What makes conception the big doo-dah?
OK. Having seriously erred on my fetal-development chronology argument, I
must backtrack a bit to establish a creidble, indeed immutable argument.
Babies have been delivered successfully as early as twenty weeks into
pregnancy (I believe it was Johns Hopkins, but I'm probably wrong on that
too) which means that by then babies have long since developed the human
characteristics you refer to. You can trace it back to the formation of
the fetus itself; granted, not QUITE when conception took place, but
what's a few hours/days among non-aborted friends?

>> True, not all sperm fertilize, not all eggs are
>>fertilized, but that is beyond our control.
AAAAAAAAUGH!!! I hate 2AM inaccuracies that come back to haunt the next
morning....
>I guess the kid has never heard of masturbation, sex, or contraception.

>Boy is he in for a _big_ surprise!

>(and some say there's too much sex ed in the schools)
Real argument is one thing. Flaming is another. Gratiutous patronism would
seem beneath the merits of this service. However, since you insist, I will
make my point clear enough for you to understand: in the sex act (which I
was referring to), of the thousands of sperm released, obviously only one
can fertilize any given egg, if the egg is even there to be fertilized.
I wrote somewhat inaccurately when I spoke of our not having control over
fertilization: your are right that with contraception we can ensure that
no eggs are fertilized. Even without contraception, most sperm die
without fertilizing an egg and, assuming chastity or good luck, most eggs
depart the female without being fertilized. (Which was my original point,
the one you so adeptly modified to include contraception...)
 Not wanting to insult your intelligence, I didn't feel it so
necessary to elaborate on that point, but evidently the intelligence isn't
there to be insulted. And as for masturbation, leave that to other news
boards, please. 
 >> What is NOT beyond our control is
>>what happens when we perform surgery on a pregnant woman to snuff out the
>>life inside of her.

>And wrap it all up with some standard pro-life emotional rhetoric.
A bit melodramatic I admit, but nevertheless the "rhetoric" state an
immutable fact.
 >-- 
>Ray Fischer                   "Every improvement in communication
>ray@netcom.com                 makes the bore more terrible"  Frank Moore Colby

mlbruce@husc.harvard.edu.
My opinions obviously do not necessarily reflect those of Harvard
University or any other individual or entity on this
great Politically Correct campus.
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