From: kevin@rotag.mi.org (Kevin Darcy)
Subject: Re: "Snapple" Anti-Choice?
Organization: Who, me???
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1992 04:47:32 GMT

In article <2mrzp6c@rpi.edu> cookc@aix.rpi.edu (rocker) writes:
>kevin@rotag.mi.org (Kevin Darcy) writes:
>
>>In article <hxpzhrb@rpi.edu> cookc@aix.rpi.edu (rocker) writes:
>>>kevin@rotag.mi.org (Kevin Darcy) writes:
>>>
>>>>You're
>>>>willing for the blood of unnecessary late-term abortions to stain your
>>>>hands BEFORE you would allow (overdue) restrictive legislation to be passed?
>>>
>>>I'm glad to see that you've finally dropped the charade of being
>>>"pro-choice", Darcy.  
>
>>Ah, context-cutting games. 
>
>Context-cutting, Darcy?  When someone tells me I will have "blood on
>my hands" if I don't support THEIR version of abortion legislation, I
>don't think one needs a lot of context to figure out where the accuser
>is coming from.  

What the hell are you talking about? MY version of abortion legislation?!?!
I've never voiced support for *ANY* abortion-related legislation except the 
FOCA -- I've certainly never voiced support for _restrictive_ abortion
legislation, so be careful with your potshots. 

As for the "blood on your hands" comment, it only existed within a 
hypothetical, and should never have been ripped from that context.

>>Is Keegan giving you lessons? 
>
>The belief that women are not capable of acting on their own, or
>making their own decisions without the guidance of a man is
>another characteristic of those who are anti-choice.

Okay, if you'd prefer:

	Is Garvin giving you lessons?

>>For the potentially-
>>confused: the sentence above is part of a hypothetical situation I presented 
>>in which significant numbers of women are having late-term abortions for 
>>trivial reasons. Cathi chose to misrepresent the question, rather than answer
>>it. 
>
>Well, now that you've come out of the closet on your anti-choice
>stance, I'll debate with you as I would with any other idiot pro-"life"r
>on the group.  

Ah, I see it now. The big lie about me being an anti-choicer is just an
excuse to dodge my probing inquiries. An "out" for the mentally lazy.

Tsk, tsk, Cathi. I thought you had more guts than that.

>The answer is that I believe a woman has the right to
>end her pregnancy at any time, for any reason.  

What if she's a malicious psychopath who only conceived the child in the 
first place so she could have it tortured and killed moments before birth, and 
she could gloat over the videotape of the whole thing for years afterwards?

I'm not saying this has ever happened, or ever WILL happen, mind you, but 
I'm testing the limits of your "for any reason" (over?)generalization...

>Since the only
>reasonable abortion methods available in the third trimester are
>induced labor and C-section, I have absolutely no problem with a
>woman ending her pregnancy a month early.  

What a euphemistic way to put it -- "ending the pregnancy early" -- given 
that a viable organism is allowed to live when the pregnancy ends "on time",
yet killed when it ends "early". Seems there's a little more to this than
just simple timing, huh?

>If what you wax so
>hysterical about is a higher fetal death rate from these procedures
>than from full-term labor, then you are prefectly free to try and
>convince me that you have an excellent reason for overriding the
>medical judgement of doctors and legislating that some certain
>technique MUST, IN ALL CASES be used.  

You are parodying my supposed position, without even bothering to hear what
it is first, Cathi. Here it is again: I DO *NOT* SUPPORT ANY RESTRICTIVE
ABORTION LEGISLATION!!! Is that starting to sink in yet?

>>The sentence did NOT imply that restrictive abortion legislation was 
>>"overdue" HERE AND NOW -- only that they would be "overdue" within the 
>>hypothetical I presented.
>
>And so I reiterate - I have no use for "feelgood" legislation.

Define "'feelgood' legislation", please. Does it cover ALL preventitive
legislation? Do you think it is sane policy to wait until a social problem
is out of control before even _starting_ to address it with legislation?
Analogy: do you wait until your engineering problems are out of control 
before writing a spec?

>>Here is the same central question again, in a more generic, and hopefully 
>>less vulnerable format:
>
>>	How many viable lives would have to be terminated without good cause
>>	before you'd permit preventitive legislation restricting late-term 
>>	abortions?
>
>Darcy, now you're on another subject entirely.  

Nope, not at all. In my previous post, I asked:

	You don't think there is any room for preventitive laws, Cathi? You're
	willing for the blood of unnecessary late-term abortions to stain your
	hands BEFORE you would allow (overdue) restrictive legislation to be 
	passed? Isn't this the same "retroactive social planning" that has 
	made such a mess of our government already?

Other than different phrasing, the questions are the same. But your evasion is
starting to waver a bit...

>My position is that
>a woman has the right to end her pregnancy at any time, for any
>reason.  I don't think you are in a particularly good position
>to mandate that the pregnancy must be ended in a certain WAY
>to save these hypothetical "viable lives", 

The viability of those lives is NOT hypothetical, Cathi, they are 
documented scientific facts.

>...but you're certainly
>free to try and get YOUR medical judgement written into law.

First, the medical judgments are not the focus of the controversy here -- it's 
the social, political and/or legal judgments that are. Medicine can only 
answer questions like "what are the risks to the mother?" and "what are the 
risks to the fetus?". But when and whether the second question is considered 
IMPORTANT or not cannot be answered by medicine alone.

Second, for hopefully the last time: I DO *NOT* SUPPORT ANY RESTRICTIVE
ABORTION LEGISLATION!!!! So please stop stating or implying that this is
my view. You are dead wrong.

								- Kevin
Newsgroups: talk.abortion