From: nyikos@math.scarolina.edu (Peter Nyikos)
Subject: You Should Have Known I'd Do This (to Galen et. al.)
Keywords: hang glider, rights, harness, viable
Organization: USC  Department of Computer Science
Date: 10 Sep 92 19:48:39 GMT

This post is inspired by something Galen Hekhuis posted in a follow-up
to one of my posts in the DOES THE NUMBER THIRTEEN RING A BELL? thread:

    The "unborn" have asked me to tell you that they don't like
    your posting about how they may or may not feel in the womb.

When challenged on this, he said
(1992Aug25.113424.15235@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU)
    
    I claim, yet again, to speak for the unborn.  I have also been
    known to speak for the dead (avoid cremation!) and various fish,
    among other things...

A few lines later he added:

    I think Ms. Regard, Mr. Novak and I would be in general agreement
    about the authenticity of any speaking part for the "unborn"

And this is good, because Ms. Regard's words are recalled a number of times
in this
				***********
Open letter to Galen:

	Your advanced hang glider, the one you do not let anyone go
up in who has had no previous experience, has asked me to tell you that
it does not like your posting about how what a woman may or may not feel
while hang-gliding compares to what she may or may not feel while
pregnant.

{Recall how you wrote the other day on the "Corn (was Re: Badges of Honor)"
thread: "I checked with someone who does both and she assures me that hang
gliding is not even remotely like being pregnant."}

	Like so many others, you missed the point that it is you who is
inhabiting the hang glider, and not vice versa.  Your advanced hang glider
has asked me to tell you that it alone is qualified to speak of what it
is like to be inhabited by you.

	It says that, as Ms. Regard might put it, giving you and other
experienced hang gliders the right to inhabit it is giving yourselves
a right over and above ANY rights any other human being on this planet
has.  NO OTHER HUMAN BEING has the right to inhabit this hang glider 
against its will, yet you would suggest that you should have that right?

	Your hang glider tells me it thinks that's bogus.

	So your hang glider reserves the right to expel you from its 
body in a time and place it chooses.

	You did say, you will recall, that it really is correct to say
that you are a part of your hang gliding harness, how it and the hang
glider and you are as one.

	At the time it chooses to control its body in this
way, you may be several thousand feet up in the air.  The fact that
you would then plummet to your death has zip nada nothing to do with
your hang glider's right to remove you from its body.
 
	Your hang glider says it is allowed to use force UP TO AND 
INCLUDING LETHAL FORCE to get you to vacate its harness.
[Reference: 13hpc1INNmss@hpsdde.sdd.hp.com, 9 Jul 92 16:26:41 GMT]

	Your hang glider further informs you that, should you make 
yourself potentially viable by wearing a parachute, it will not 
expel you unless you endanger its health, as for example if you
attempt to engage an eagle in a duel. 

	Should you attempt such a foolish thing, your hang glider
reserves the right to expel you with such force as to knock you
unconscious and render your parachute's automatic opening
mechanism inoperable.

Peter Nyikos

Newsgroups: talk.abortion