From: smezias@rnd.GBA.NYU.EDU (Stephen J. Mezias)
Newsgroups: talk.abortion
Subject: Re: Darcy and the Twelve Specious Arguments.
Date: 27 Dec 92 13:55:16 GMT
Organization: NYU Stern School of Business

In article <1992Dec26.225935.13235@rotag.mi.org> kevin@rotag.mi.org
(Kevin Darcy) writes: 

>Your definition of "broad implications for public health" are arbitrary,
>however. Is murder to be considered primarily a health matter? You can't
>get much more unhealthy than DEAD, after all. Is rape to be considered
>primarily a health matter? Sure, if you arbitrarily pick a range of issues
>and say "THESE are health issues", then a nice neat distinction between
>so-called "medical issues" and legislative issues can be made. But who makes
>that selection in the first place? LEGISLATORS! They are the ones who pass
>on whether the issue is "unimportant" enough to be left primarily in the 
>hands of medical professionals or not. So, what the specious argument
>really boils down to is:

The definition of health issues with respect to legislation is
arbitrary: All legislative definitions are arbitrary.  We generally
regard virtually any decision that involves a person and their doctor
as a health issue: Why treat abortion differently?

>	"abortion can be handled as strictly a medical issue, as long as
>	the legislators believe it can be handled that way"
>
>which is a true, but useless assertion.

It is hardly useless since it is at least accurate for purposes of
description as to how health policy actually works in this country.

>>>	o  "legislation is distinguishable from morality" / "morality 
>>>	   should not be legislated"
>>
>>The correct statement is that legislation is distinguishable from
>>absolute morality if such a thing exists.  
>
>Thanks for rewriting the argument to suit your purposes. Now, please define
>"absolute morality".

Prickly.  Prickly.  Prickly.  I didn't mean to sound as if I were
correcting you.  I was merely pointing out how to make the statement
less specious and closer to the meaning of how I have seen it used.  I
don't believe in absolute morality.

>Well, sometimes in the dark of night, when I'm half-asleep, half-awake, my 
>nightstand looks kind of like a gnarled tree trunk. Subjective appearances
>are all very fine and good, Stephen, but equating subjective appearances with
>objective realities is often false. My nightstand is not a gnarled tree trunk,
>neither is a fetus (unwanted or not) a "parasite". It displays some parasitic
>behavior, true, but its species is _homo sapiens_, and that species is NOT
>classified as a "parasite".

I didn't know you were an expert on the biology of parasites.  Among
us lay people we often refer to any entity that feeds off the body of
another entity as a parasite.  As far as your statements about
objective reality, I can only observe that a fetus is really feeding
off the body of a woman and that if she wants to get rid of it, her
feeling that it is a parasite would come as close to being objectively
true as any other proof that some entity were a parasite.
 
>>>	o  "a fetus is just a part of the woman's body"
>>
>>I understand that a /z/e/f/ has a potential eventually for life apart
>>from the mother that no other part of a woman's body has.  
>
>Weren't you just asking me, in another article, why viability was important?
>You seem to be answering your own question here.

Not at all.  Viability is not important since 5 year olds, who most
certainaly have long-standing viability, cannot compel bodily
servitude from their parents.

>>However, at
>>a very general level of abstraction, I believe that since the /z/e/f/
>>is contained wholly within the mother it qualifies as part of the
>>mother.  The metaphor is not specious.
>
>It's specious when, as with the subjective impression of "parasite", the
>metaphor is elevated to the level of an objective fact.

(1) The impression that a fetus is a parasite is no more metaphorical
or subjective than any other impression.  (2) Are you denying that a
/z/e/f/ is wholly contained within a woman's body?  (3) Are you
denying that when one object is wholly contained in another object we
often refer to the first object as part of the second?

>>>	o  "pro-life is inherently a religious view"
>>
>>The correct statement: Pro-life is frequently associated with
>>fundamentalist religious views, Roman Catholic and other.
>
>"Frequently associated with" != "inherently"

I agree.  I corrected the language to make the statement more
descriptive.

>>>	o  "pro-life is inherently misogynistic"
>>
>>If one accepts the disparate impact of the legislative agenda of the
>>fetus fanatics as sufficient evidence of misogyny, then this is not at
>>all specious.
>
>To judge intent solely by effect IS specious. A meteorite that falls and
>injures two women and only one man is NOT necessarily "misogynistic". 

You are once again wrong: (1) The meteor, just like the iceberg that
sank the Titanic, has no volition.  While I sometimes wonder about the
intelligence of the fetus fanatics, their sentience and volition are
self-evident.  (2) Our legal system frequently rules based solely on
effect: contract law and equal pay for identical work are two
examples.  The second example is particularly germane here: A ruling
of illegal discrimination in the case of unequal pay for identical
work requires no proof of intent: The disparate effect of the wage
policy is enough to prove discrimination.

>>>	o  "restrictive abortion laws violate Equal Protection"
>>
>>Do you think they enhance equal protection?  
>
>No, but neither, as far as I know, does the depletion of the ozone layer.
>
>"Lack of enhancement" != "violation"

The ozone layer depletion is not a legal mandate last time I checked.
Restrictive abortion laws are a government intervention, and hence
should be scrutinized to ensure that it does not violate principles of
equity unnecessarily.
 
>>If murder is a legal term, which it is, then this is factually correct
>>with respect to that definition.  
>
>It's also traditionally been a moral term, therefore the blanket "in any 
>sense" makes it a specious argument.

Last time I checked the traditional moral term was killing, cf the
ten commandments, and the tradition legal term was murder.  Note you
also did not respond to my point that it is the definition in the mind
of the person writing the argument that is germane to whether or not
it is specious.  More socially construction.  I know, it's hard.

SJM
Newsgroups: talk.abortion