Newsgroups: soc.culture.indian,talk.abortion
Subject: Re: Arrogant Indians and Susan Forgach
From: mcbeanb@brandonu.ca
Date: 9 Sep 92 14:50:27 CST
Organization: Brandon University, Brandon, Manitoba, Canada

In article <92250.091118RIPBC@CUNYVM.BITNET>, <RIPBC@CUNYVM.BITNET> writes:
[...] 
>          I  soon  realized  that  my  belief  was  implausible.   Bach  and
>     Beethoven, Wittgenstein and Tolstoy evidently had souls.  I am afraid I
>     revised my belief to "no souls  west of the English channel"  and  kept
>     it for some time.  (I have dropped it now.)

Well that's nice to hear, seeing how everybody is West of the English
channel...  Then again what would be wrong with that? hmmm
 
>          However, the business about abortion  has bothered me a lot.   How
>     can people with souls be so STRONGLY pro-choice?  I can understand that
>     abortion might sometime be the lesser  of two evils.  But a `right  to
>     choose' seems to imply that we need not even consider the other evil.

Waita second here...  I thought the word "choice" sort of implied that
you would consider more than just one choice.  Having the right to choose
means you have the right to choose...  What else could it mean?

>     It seems  to me that every time that  the
>     West has  a moral  disease, then  they call  it progress,  and Indians,
>     anxious to `enter the 20th century' are only too happy to catch it.

I find this statement disgustingly prejudiced.  You are dismissing people
who have beliefs differing from yours as being diseased.  Not only that
but you are blaming "the West" for alleged corruption of India.  I don't
think that either "the West" or India have the terrible moral diseases
you think they do.  Maybe you just can't accept the fact that not everybody
will agree with everything you think or believe.

>          This is why  the postings of  Susan Forgach have  been an enormous
>     comfort to me.  

Suzanne is quite determined, and that's always good to see.
 
>          Pro-choicers might  not be  aware that  they, while  attacking the
>     fundamentalists, are RELYING on  the Old Testament.  

I can't remember the last time I attacked a fundamentalist, but such
attacks would most likely be fruitless since my beliefs stray so far
from fundamentalism...  I have *never* relied on the Old Testament
to further any of my arguments for being pro-choice.

>     In  Hindu-Buddhist
>     theology, all life is sacred (Krishna says explicitly that animals have
>     souls, and Buddha's record is well known) and so the argument, that the
>     foetus is not  a person and  so we can  treat it with  contempt, has no
>     standing at all.  An acceptance of this seems to be in the offing  with
>     respect for whales - so why not include unborn pre-humans?

I bet you show contempt for plant life and/or animal life everyday.
Otherwise you would have starved long ago.  Whales are a species
which is in danger of extinction due to the overhunting of man.
As long as men and women have sex, there will be a pretty good supply
of unborn prehumans.  Right?
 
>          Man (or woman)  is not the  measure of all  things.  If we  want a
>     decent soceity to live in, we could start by acting decently  ouselves.

We can start by respecting the rights of our fellow living persons.
I've already started, how 'bout you? (dontcha wanna be a Pepper too?)

>     the recent decision by the Connecticut  high court that it is OK  for a
>     woman to take  cocaine an hour  before delivery -  severely harming the
>     `non-person', is just bonkers.  This is what happens when all decisions
>     are made on legalistic grounds.

I think that's a non-sequitor (Mike Steiner just taught me that, am I
correct in saying so?)...

Brian McBean  -  McBeanB@BrandonU.Ca
Newsgroups: soc.culture.indian