From: frank@D012S436.sniap.mchp.sni.de ()
Subject: Re: Abortion vs. Adoption
Organization: Siemens-Nixdorf AG
Date: Tue, 1 Sep 92 10:50:58 GMT

jbrindle@halcyon.com (Jennifer Brindle) writes:
: In article <1992Aug28.152616.972@sniap.mchp.sni.de> frank@D012S436.sniap.mchp.sni.de () writes:
: If a woman feels that the fetus/whatever is a person, deserving of legal
: protection, and it is wrong to destroy it, then either she shouldn't have
: an abortion or be prepared to do some pretty serious dissonance reduction.
: 
: I have no statistics, but I would venture a guess (based on the fact that
: most women who have abortions are sure it was the right decision) that
: they don't feel that way about the fetus.

Fine, if that's true.  I don't want statistics.  I'd settle
for one honest woman who can look into her heart and tell, not me,
nor you, but herself, that this is the case.  Not saying, "all in all, 
trading this against that, I did the right thing", but "I *feel* fine 
about it.  I have no moral doubts whatsoever.".  Heart not head, you see.  
Conscience, not predicate logic.

But if the doubt is there, I guess she would have to dig deep
to find it.  I can't imagine how someone could carry a thing
like that with somehow burying it and convincing themselves
it isn't there.

: I would also venture a guess (based on what I've learned from women who
: "regret" abortions) that those women who do regret the decision were
: coerced in some manner to abort; women who made their own decisions were
: happy with their decison.  Same goes for women who give birth, BTW--women
: who feel coerced in some manner to give birth have difficult feelings, but
: women who are happy to become a mother (possibly again) are happy with
: the decision.  It's kinda funny how good having control over such
: basic functions of your body makes you feel.
: 
: >as the song goes.  You don't bring a woman who has recently had an 
: >abortion to the local kid's playground.  Why is that?
: >
: 
: Why not?  If I had an abortion, I might very well go to the playground
: soon afterwards, as I have a three-year-old who just loves playgrounds.
: Did you just make this statement up?  IT sounds like it.
: 

Yes, this statement of mine was rather glib, and I do apologise for it.
I regretted it almost as soon as I had hit 'p'. Personally, I would 
feel very uneasy about putting such a woman in such a situation, but 
that's my problem, not hers.

: >Whether this represents a profound truth about abortion, or just 
: >society's conditioning of the mother, I couldn't say.   But why
: >should it be that a woman can control her intellect sufficiently
: >to rebel against society's norms (in my country abortion is illegal)
: >and not her emotions?
: >
: 
: Most of the folks that I know who are pro-choice DO control their emotions
: on this issue; most of the folks that I kow who are pro-life, don't, or
: can't.  Most women I have known who have had abortions look at it from
: a strictly logical point of view.  In fact, all of them have.  
: 
: What makes you think that women DON'T look at this decision logically?

I was trying to make clear that logic may have very little to
do with this.  Take something that you think *is* morally wrong,
say murder (not wishing to imply that abortion is like murder).
What logic compels you to say it's wrong?  Somewhere early
on there is something you "just feel" or "just know" - maybe
"human life is important", maybe something you can't name.
Everything else flows logically, but it's no theorem.  You
can't prove by induction that murder is wrong.  That's
why TBBA (Truth by Blatant Assertion) is such a laughable
acronym on this group - conscience is TBBA.  Everything
you will ever know about abortion will be TBBA.

The logic steps are trivial, and utterly unimportant.  The 
conscience step *is* important.

I need to differentiate between emotions and conscience,
I think.  You can control the former, but not in my
opinion the latter.  The former can be produced by
what I call the "guilt industry", but the latter comes
from within.  It can be hard to tell the two apart.

I was also trying to make clear that a woman's conscience
will naturally act as some sort of checksum on all of
this so called "logic".  If it's wrong, she'll
know.  If it isn't, she'll do fine, but she'll still have
to cope with those who protest that it is wrong.  

She'll have to deal with those emotions.  There is after all at
least *one* human being involved here.  I can't believe 
that all of those strident voices don't make a dent,
particularly when they often begin indoctrination very
young, at least that's how it is in my country (Ireland, by
the way, not Germany :-))  

And though you may look at something logically, you may yet
get it wrong.  It's happened to you before, I guess, I know
it's happened to me :-)


: 
: 
: Jennifer
--
Frank O'Dwyer		       			Disclaimer: 
Siemens-Nixdorf AG 	                        I will deny everything
Tel.  : +49 (89) 636-40639                      Fax.  : +49 (89) 636-45860
e-mail: Frank.ODwyer@sniap.mchp.sni.de <--Use this, reply-to is broken
Newsgroups: talk.abortion