From: kevin@rotag.mi.org (Kevin Darcy)
Subject: Re: Spoken Like a True ProLifer
Organization: Who, me???
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1993 14:13:54 GMT

In article <C0F9wF.1G7@news.cso.uiuc.edu> vengeanc@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu () writes:
>kevin@rotag.mi.org (Kevin Darcy) writes:
>
>>In article <C01u1B.7H9@news.cso.uiuc.edu> vengeanc@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu () writes:
>>>hsims@vax.clarku.edu writes:
>>>
>>>>In a previous article, vengeanc@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>The resistance you hear from "us" concerning social programs is not
>>>>>a result of our lack of respect or concern for human life, rather it is
>>>>>from the opposite, our concern for human life.  Creating a welfare state
>>>>>inhibits people's belief in themselves, promotes and reinforces their
>>>>>feelings of helplessness rather than encouraging the desire to change their
>>>>>situation by themselves, and punishes those who have accepted the 
>>>>>responsibility for their own destiny (ie. people who work).
>>>
>>>>Really, those poor, homeless, and hungry children should just take 
>>>>responsibility for their lives and find a job.  Funding programs such as 
>>>>WIC will just encourage infants and children to be lazy bums.
>>>
>>>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.  
>
>>It is far more realistic to subsidize abortion, maybe even to incentivize it,
>>than to rely on people "controlling their hormones", and it achieves the same
>>economic result, i.e. reduction of the birth rate among poor people.
>
>Ahh.. I see.  You don't think poor people are capable of making intelligent
>decisions by themselves.  You want to make sure you hold their hand since
>you are so superior.  

I'm not making a decision for anyone, "vengeanc", I'm offering them a choice
which, when chosen, happens to have beneficial effects on the national
economy. It is the anti-choice faction who wants to take away the choices
and make decisions for people.

>Your statement that the desired result is the "reduction of the birth rate
>among poor people" is insulting and narrow-minded.  The desired result
>is protect the children, born and unborn.  

It is a greater evil, IMO, to bring a child into the world, and inflict on
it (statistically, at least) a life of suffering and misery, than it is to
spare it by aborting before it has the capacity to suffer and be miserable.
This is an example of the quality called "mercy".

>>>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.  
>
>>In my opinion...
>
>>The WORST "crime" is to let children starve. 
>
>Is murder a lesser crime than neglect?

Even outside the technical legal definitions, murder implies malice, 
"vengeanc". So, unless you have evidence that ANY abortion ever performed was 
motivated by the pregnant woman's malice, I must dismiss your implication that
abortion constitutes "murder" as just empty, run-of-the-mill pro-life rhetoric.

>>The second-worst "crime" is to interfere with a woman's decision to abort,
>>either by mandating or forbidding abortion.
>
>Is murder a lesser crime than this?   

No. But there is no murder, since there is an absence of malice. And there is
no manslaughter, since the woman is only asserting her right of Bodily 
Autonomy.

>>The third-worst "crime" is for government to start interfering in sexual
>>relations between consenting adults by telling them to "control their
>>hormones" or whatever.
>
>Is murder a lesser crime than this?

No.

>>Fourth on my list of "crimes" is for taxpayers to end up supporting children 
>>of poor people who are otherwise unable to support them adequately themselves.
>>Look at our GNP sometime -- we can easily provide this support.
>
>Well then.. since you seem to think murder is okay to end economic problems,
>why don't you just run out and kill all the homeless, welfare families,
>unemployed, and elderly.  

Because that would have highly-undesirable non-economic ripple effects.

>>>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.  
>
>>Has any state ever successfully prosecuted any woman for "murder", because 
>>she aborted, even BEFORE _Roe v. Wade_? If not, what's your basis for citing
>>"the laws of this country" in support of your contention that "abortion is
>>murder"?
>
>Of course not.. The women involved are not the murderers.  The abortionists
>are the murderers.  I have written on this extensively in this group
>and I'm not going to repeat myself just because you can't keep up.  

By the same token, I'm not going to waste my time scanning through thousands
of articles trying to find your high-falutin' <snicker> treatises on "murder"...

Suffice it to say though, that I've always found the claim that "abortionists 
are murderers, but women aren't" to be rather, er, anomalous. Shouldn't the
"hired gun" and the person who hires them be considered _equally_ guilty? 

>Your assumption with this stupid argument is that just because no one
>has every been successfully prosecuted of this before, that it is unreasonable
>to expect them to be prosecuted for it in the future.  Cocaine used to be
>legal.  Now it isn't.. is this something you can't understand?  

What I understand is that "abortion is murder" has no moral or legal validity.
You are welcome to try and persuade me otherwise.

>It might help your ability to debate here if you were remotely familiar
>with the real facts of the issue, and with what has been said here.  

Prosecuting abortionists and/or the women who obtain them is not a "real 
fact", it's rampant speculation based on incoherent rationales. As for "what 
has been said here", to which of the groups in the Newsgroups: line are you 
referring? I'm a fairly regular reader of talk.abortion, but I really don't 
think the Rush Limbaugh groups are exactly, er, excellent sources of objective 
information about abortion, so if you've been dumping your treatises in Rush-
land, I wouldn't necessarily know about it. Or care. 

								- Kevin
Newsgroups: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh