From: bskendig@netcom.com (Brian Kendig)
Newsgroups: talk.abortion
Subject: Re: I had an abortion two days ago
Date: 15 Oct 92 14:23:04 GMT
Organization: Starfleet Headquarters: San Francisco

nyikos@math.scarolina.edu (Peter Nyikos) wrote (in article <nyikos.719096365@milo.math.scarolina.edu>):
>In <1992Oct10.174820.28264@netcom.com> bskendig@netcom.com (Brian Kendig) writes:
>>You're missing a crucial point here, Martin.  There's a difference
>>between "wanting to cut off bodily support to the fetus" and "wanting
>>to kill the fetus".  If the law allowed a woman to cut off support to
>>a fetus and have it removed from her body and kept alive by hospital
>>staff, but not killed, I don't think many women would have a very big
>>problem with this.
>
>Except the ones that want the fetal tissue harvested.

How many women want to terminate the pregnancy just so fetal tissue
can be harvested?  I can't believe that it's even close to a tenth of
a percent of all women who have abortions.

>>That being said, how do you propose to allow a woman to cut off
>>support to the fetus without killing it?  Can you think of any way for
>>a woman to end her pregnancy before birth and have no further legal
>>ties to the fetus, without killing the fetus?  If you think of a way,
>>we'll be more than happy to consider it.
>
>You mean it never occurred to you that she might have it removed 
>after viability???  And why don't women bother to wait until 
>after viability?

Probably because waiting until viability introduces more risk to the
woman, and because there just aren't enough resources in this
already-overburdened country to turn every unwanted fetus into an
unwanted baby right now.

>>Another consideration is: who will pay to keep the fetus alive?  It'll
>>be pretty expensive to incubate an eight-week fetus until it can
>>survive on its own and be given to an adoption agency.
>
>It depends on the circumstances.  If the woman does it for gender
>selection reasons, she should foot the bill.  If she does it because
>of serious health impairment, then the fetus should become a ward
>of the state unless she wants to keep it, and then an equitable 
>arrangement would have to be worked out on a case-by-case basis.

But what if she does it because she simply doesn't have the money to
keep both herself AND a baby alive?  This is a consideration in a lot
of abortions, and unfortunately here you can't expect a woman to pay
exorbitant incubation fees.

I think that if American government decides to fund incubation and
foot the costs of raising a child in an adoption agency, we'll blow up
our deficit REAL quick.

>>So what it comes down to is that I feel a woman has as much right to
>>refuse to use her body to support a fetus as you have a right to
>>refuse to use your body to support a dying man.  It's unfortunate that
>>the fetus has to be killed in the process, but since the fetus goes
>>through half a year of development without having even a working
>>brain,
>
>The brain starts working at 7 weeks or before.

I disagree with this statement.  It may be 'active' at 7 weeks or
before -- heck, put three neurons together in a Petri dish and they're
'active' -- but it's certainly not working, in the same sense that a
computer dunked in water may fizzle and crackle but certainly isn't
'working' in any sense of the word.

-- 
_/_/_/  Brian Kendig                             Je ne suis fait comme aucun
 _/_/  bskendig@netcom.com                de ceux que j'ai vus; j'ose croire
  _/                            n'etre fait comme aucun de ceux qui existent.
        "Sex is DEATH!"      Si je ne vaux pas mieux, au moins je suis autre.
         -- Barbara Bush                                         -- Rousseau
Newsgroups: talk.abortion,alt.abortion.inequity