From: parker@ehsn17.cen.uiuc.edu (Robert S. Parker)
Subject: Re: Spoken Like a True ProLifer
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Mon, 4 Jan 1993 22:26:02 GMT

vengeanc@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu () writes:

>margoli@watson.ibm.com (Larry Margolis) writes:

>>In <C01u1B.7H9@news.cso.uiuc.edu> vengeanc@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu () writes:
>>>
>>>Those poor, homeless and hungry children should have had parents responsible
>>>enough to realize they couldn't afford to feed children.  If they could
>>>have controlled their hormones there wouldn't be a problem. You tell me which
>>>is the worse crime, society refusing to pay deadbeats or deadbeats knowingly
>>>bringing children into the world whom they cannot feed.  Would any decent
>>>person bring children into this world to watch them starve?  I think not.

>>Sounds like you're suggesting that if the couple wanted a child, but their
>>financial situation changed after conception so that they could no longer
>>afford to have a child, the responsible action would be to get an abortion.

>This is a stupid comment on your part.  First of all, you and I both know
>the truth is that this is not how these situations arise.  Generally,
>poor families have more babies for one of two reasons.. 1. Stubborn insistance
>on exercising some authority over their lives by having children (ignoring
>the needs of the children in doing so)  or 2. Seeking to increase welfare
>payments from the TAX supported state by adding another starving kid to
>the litter.

Or 3. They have this idea that if they have a lot of children then they
improve the chances that *one* of them will grow up to be a doctor or something
and get out of poverty.  (It's more likely to have the opposite effect,
unfortunately.)

>They should put it up for adoption and then be reimbursed the expenses
>of pregnancy and childbirth if the situation you proposed actually occurred.  

>>>Abortion is murder.  It's not a question of just the mother's life, but also
>>>the baby's.  The laws of this country already state that murder is wrong so
>>>in fact the state already has control over this issue.

>>But murder is illegal, and abortion is legal.  I guess abortion is *not*
>>murder after all.

>Another brainless one-liner comment with no forethought behind it.  Did
>you think I was not aware that unborn baby killing is legal?  Just because
>the LEGAL definition of murder has surrendered to the liberal, self-serving,
>do-anything-I-want-with-no-personal-responsibility-or-repercussions wing
>of society doesn't mean abortion isn't murder.  My point was that society has
>always considered murder wrong, and has allowed personal liberties to be
>curtailed in order to proscribe it legally.  This is the function of
>government.  Instituting a government always involves sacrificing personal
>liberties to ensure protection of property and other rights.  Go read
>Locke and get back to me when you understand this.  The primary job of
>government IS to RESTRICT actions which violate the basic rights of its
>citizens, primarily the right to LIFE.

Hmmm "abortion is murder" vs "abortion is not murder".  They sound pretty
much the same in themselves.  How is the latter a brainless one-liner when
the former is not justified at all?  We argue that abortion is not "murder"
because the unborn is not a "person".  We back up that assertion with other
arguments (which we don't have room for here).  You argue that abortion is
murder because murder is the taking of human life.  That is your definition
of murder, but as Larry is trying to argue, it is not society's definition.
Why should we give any more credit to your definition than you give to ours?

>>Larry Margolis, MARGOLI@YKTVMV (Bitnet), margoli@watson.IBM.com (Internet)

>Edward Simmonds

-Rob
Newsgroups: talk.abortion