From: regard@sdd.hp.com (Adrienne Regard)
Newsgroups: talk.abortion
Subject: Re: Good News from a Premie!
Date: 15 Sep 1992 11:40:20 -0700
Organization: Hewlett Packard, San Diego Division
NNTP-Posting-Host: hpsdde.sdd.hp.com

In article <1992Sep15.154725.25747@u.washington.edu> cbrand@cac.washington.edu (Carol Brand) writes:
>In article <19350rINN4jb@hpsdde.sdd.hp.com> regard@sdd.hp.com (Adrienne Regard) writes:
>>In article <1992Sep14.211646.8121@u.washington.edu> cbrand@cac.washington.edu (Carol Brand) writes:
>>>As more and more premies are saved, I think we will all have to do some
>>>serious thinking about acceptable cutoffs for abortions.  In the state of
>>>Washington, a woman can have an abortion through the 24th week.  It seems
>>>rather hypocritical to have a doctor in one room fighting to save a life
>>>while in another a doctor is ending one.
>
>>why?
>>I don't see anything particularly hypocritical about it.  Perhaps you can
>>tell us why you do?
>Hummmm....
>
>How do I explain this, it's rather like having to explain why life has any
>value at all.  If a babies at 21 weeks are surviving, then it seems by
>definition that they are persons, with all of the inalienable rights that
>are guaranteed by our US constitution.  To purposefully take their lives
>is wrong, just as it is wrong to take the life of a person at 2 years, 30
>years, or 80.  I think it is hypocritical for people to decide that
>someone is a person in one case, but not another.

Is that what they are deciding?  I thought instead that they were deciding
that one baby was wanted, and they were attempting to insure that baby could
live, but that the other fetus was unwanted, and the woman who was carrying
it within the confines of her body said, "no more".

Maybe if you see birth as the event that 'begins' the definition of person-
hood, you wouldn't struggle with the concept.  I only have the kind of
cognitive dissonance you exhibit if I consider these fetuses in a vacuum.
Once I recognise that one of the fetuses is within the body of a woman, I
cease to have a problem with the 'hypocracy' you mentioned.

A 21 week fetus may be able to survive outside the womb.  But it *isn't*
outside the womb if it's being aborted, is it?

Once outside the womb, seems to me that the baby should be treated as a baby,
and it may be salvageable or not.  And our society may be able to afford
to salvage them -- or not.  After all, there are 21 week old babies that
we can keep alive, but there are many more that we can't/don't/don't even try.

>You once asked me if I had an analogy for why abortion is wrong.  I
>thought about it a lot, so here goes.  Do you think that it is ok to
>remove a person from a life support system? (Many people say yes!).  Now,
>however, do you think that it is ok to remove a person from a life support
>system if you know that in 9 months they will be fully living on their own
>again?  Your thoughts?

Let me answer your questions with a question:  Does the life-support-system
have an opinion, or not?  If not, I'll answer that *my* wishes WRT the
removal or retention of a life-support system only is important when we
are talking about me, or close family members I may have guardianship
responsibility for.  I'd probably go with the life-support if they
were going to recover in 9 months -- and assuming the hospital would take
payments....  However, if the life-support-system has an opinion on the
matter, and the life-support-system declines to serve as life-support, then
I don't have a choice any longer, do I?  I don't get to use life-support-
systems according to MY will, if those systems have a human will of their
own.

Adrienne Regard
Newsgroups: talk.abortion,alt.abortion.inequity