From: scotts@CS.CMU.EDU (Scott Safier)
Newsgroups: talk.abortion
Subject: Re: Adoption vs Abortion
Date: 16 Apr 92 16:38:03 GMT
	<1992Apr15.195052.5777@galileo.cc.rochester.edu>
Organization: School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University
Originator: scotts@ISL1.RI.CMU.EDU

In <1992Apr15.055321.19702@galileo.cc.rochester.edu> mjln_ltd@uhura.cc.rochester.edu (Mikeey J. Lin) writes:

   	The following two statements seem to be fairly common on t.a. :
      
                      "Abortion is a cop-out"

                 "Well, Adoption is also a cop-out".

   I'm curious to how people feel about the benefits and consequences of both
   alternatives. So let's hear some responses folks, and please keep your hands 
   off the flamethrowers. It would be nice to see some constructive criticisms, 
   NOT new ways of putting down the other side. Here's two questions to get the
   ball rolling. Thanks in advance to everyone that responds.

   Pro-Choicers : Would an adoption be a resonable alternative for an abortion
                  to you? 

It is a red herring argument to compare adoption and abortion.  Each
has its benefits and disavantages, but they are two seperate issues
that some people try to combine under a false claim that adoption is a
substitute for abortion.  This false assumption confounds the issues
and  problems of each so that society cannot deal with either
adequately. 

Adoption is not a substitute for abortion.  Giving birth is
twenty-fives times more risky to the life/health of a woman than is a
first trimester abortion.  A woman's body undergoes biological changes
during pregnancy, and her day-to-day life is certainly effected these
changes.  Adoption is not a option for woman carrying fatal fetuses or
severely deformed or handicapped fetuses.  It is sad but true that
most families will only adopt healthy children.  It is also not a
substitute for most victims of rape and incest.

Giving up a child for adoption is not easy.  I think it is
insulting to woman and adopted children for the anti-choice movement
to claim that abortion is "baby killing" and then turn around and
encourage women with unwanted pregnancies to "tough it out" and give
up their children for adoption.  It's as if they are claiming that
giving up a born child were as easy as tossing out the garbage.

Abortion is a medical procedure.  Abortion should be regulated like
any other medical procedure.  Adoption is a social issue.  The
regulation of adoption is different than abortion.  While it is true
that there is a waiting period to adopt healthy, white babies, there
is an abundance of drug addicted babies, minority babies, and older
children waiting to be adopted.  In Pennsylvania, there are so many
children that the State has considered re-opening orphanages -- there
are not enough foster familes to take the children.  Adoption
legislation must deal with this issue as well as others, such as the
rights of adopted children to information about their birth-mother.
The linking a medical procedure to a social issue hides all the social
issue's problems under a smoke-screen that it is a solution to another
problem.

________  __
\      / /  \
 \pink/  \__          -+--+-               Scott Safier    (scotts@ri.cmu.edu)
  \  /      \  _  __   |  |                Center for Integrated Manufacturing
   \/    \__/ (__/\_)_/|_/|_/                                 Decision Systems
                                           Carnegie Mellon

"Since it [homosexuality] happens to be abnormal behavior ... If
everybody chose that course of conduct, the human race would end...
That's a pretty good indication of what's abnormal."
	Steven Freind, Republican Primary Candidate for U.S. Senate
        Pitt News, January 8, 1992
Newsgroups: talk.abortion