From: olson@husc9.Harvard.EDU (Charles Olson)
Newsgroups: alt.callahans
Subject: Re: abortion
Date: 12 Apr 92 16:53:06 GMT
Article-I.D.: husc3.1992Apr12.125307.10994
Organization: Spam-On-A-Rope Inc.

In article <1992Apr12.134931.14905@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>, trumpins@alexia.lis.uiuc.edu (Barbara Trumpinski) writes:
|> In <1992Apr12.122338.24602@muddcs.claremont.edu> dgreen@jarthur.claremont.edu (David 'Mishael' Green) writes:
|> 
|> >Mishael shakes his head a little.  "It's not that people are trying to be
|> >busybodies and poke their say into everyone's life when they oppose abortion--
|> >or at least, that's not my goal in believing that abortion's not right...
|> >It's that we (or at least I) believe that abortion is the taking of a life,
|> >an innocent life undeserving of being taken.  You don't call people
|> >busybodies who believe that it is wrong to kill another person in cold blood,
|> >do you?
|> 
|> "some of these people are busybodies and some aren't.  i can respect
|> the people who are so opposed to death that they will do anything to
|> stop it...but if you picket outside a clinic where women are getting
|> abortions do you also work to end the death penalty?
|> 
|> and, are you registered for the draft? have you refused or are you
|> listed as a concientious objector? do you work to get cigarettes and
|> alcohol off the market? how do you feel about the 'right to die' issue?
|> 
|> it is all tied together...."  kitten starts kicking soap boxes out of
|> the way. "damn, i knew i should have kept my mouth shut....can we take
|> some of these out to the meadow for the bonfire?

"Er, Kitten, can I use those for a sec before you burn them?"

"You and Mishael have brought up something that's been on my mind throughout
this discussion... I consider myself strongly `pro-choice', in that I believe
an abortion is a matter of individual choice and cannot be anybody else's
business except the woman's doctor and (in limited ways) the father.  

"I'm also vehemently, adamantly opposed to the death penalty, in any and all
circumstances.  There's often this discrepancy on both sides, with so many 
people taking apparently contradictory stands on these two issues.  I person-
ally view it as a matter of how the state exerts power over the individual, 
by forbidding them to make this choice for themselves or by murdering them
outright (and I use the term deliberately; it reflects my view accurately).

"But every time I see or read about an Operation Rescue action, with people 
chaining themselves to clinic doors and screaming `Murderer' at the clients 
going in, I have to remind myself that they are acting out of the same 
motivations that cause me to literally scream at the TV set or newspaper 
every time Bush or Gov. Weld call for more and speedier executions (Weld
is trying to reinstate the death penalty in MA; christ, and I voted for
him too).  There isn't much in terms of direct action that I can do- gas
chambers are harder to blockade than abortion clinics- but I know that
if I felt the same way about abortion as I do about capital punishment,
and I wasn't so disgusted by their tactics, I'd probably be out there 
with Operation Rescue.  Both issues cut so completely across one's moral,
ethical, religious and philosophical beliefs that a compromise is extremely
difficult to reach."

"OK, I'm done, let's take these out and burn them... oh man, anybody got
a forklift?"

-- 
-Chip Olson. | olson@husc.harvard.edu | ceo@gnu.ai.mit.edu (seldom used)
"So come all ye lovers of the Good Life, your children playing in the sun,
And set a sympathetic flag a-flying, and be there when the Dutchman comes..."
                                      -Jethro Tull, "Flying Dutchman"