From: yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu (victor yodaiken)
Newsgroups: ne.politics
Subject: Re: Give 'em a Right then a Left
Date: 17 Aug 92 17:30:46 GMT
Organization: University of Massachusetts, Amherst

In article <1992Aug11.043530.2702@odi.com> dlw@odi.com writes:
>In article <51400@dime.cs.umass.edu> yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu (victor yodaiken) writes:
>
>   >Actually, unless I miss my guess, Pennsylvania's law provides that only
>   >one parent be notified.  Failing that, a judge's permission will
>   >suffice.
>
>   So, it does not suffice that a medical doctor, i.e. someone specifically
>   trained to have expertise in the area, and the pregnant individual --- the
>   person with the most at stake, decide the issue, you want to have a lawyer
>   or 5 get involved as well to bring to bear that special moral sense for
>   which lawyers are famous. Interesting. Why not bring in a few card sharps,
>   used car dealers, and TV evangelists as well, while you are at it? 
>
>While there may be good arguments against why a judge should get
>involved, the argument "judges are lawyers and therefore sleazebags"
>does not convince me.  If you feel that way about judges, who should

That is not my argument. But, it is certainly the case that Judges are
not trained to understand the psychological, moral, or medical issues
involved in abortions, and if one is going to permit any abortions at all,
it makes no sense to make young women apply to the judiciary for 
permission. One should attempt to conduct this debate honestly, and
in this light we can see that the Pennsylvania requirments for 
judicial sanction are merely roadblocks strutured to make abortions as
difficult as possible, without actually forbidding them.

>Opinion polls lately show that about 70% of Americans feel that an
>abortion is the taking of a life; 70% also feel that the woman should
>have the right to choose whether to have an abortion.  Yes, it's
>contradictory, but there you have it.  Things get more interesting and

It's not contradictory at all. 

>subtle when you ask more specific questions in these polls.  The only
>point I need to make here is that you may contend that it is "simple"
>and "obvious" that an abortion is *not* the taking of a life, but a
>lot of people will disagree with you.

I do not argue that it is either simple or obvious that abortion is
not the taking of a life. Instead, I argue that outlawing abortion is
simply and obviously the imposition of chattel status on women. 
If one accepts that that women have the right to chose whether or not
to give birth without forswearing sex with men, then one must admit
to the necessity of legal abortions . 


>My own view on abortion at this time is that I have no qualms
>whatsoever about the termination of a zygote or a 16-celled blastula;
>that is not a person.  I have serious misgivings about termination of
>a 9-month fetus; that's pretty damned close to a person, and if I'm
>not exactly sure, in the face of uncertainty I'd rather err on the
>side of avoiding the taking of human life.  The question of when the
>developing embryo/fetus becomes a "person" for purposes of having a
>right to live is a mystery (I use the word is a sort-of technical
>sense).  It is not something science can answer; it is inherently
>outside the domain of the scientific method (c.f. principle of David
>Hume).  There's no way anyone is going to provide a convincing
>argument for exactly where to draw the line.  It gets down to very
>deep issues about the foundations of our moral sense.  I cannot accept
>"conception" as the answer, but I cannot accept "birth" either (does a
>C-section convert a non-person into a person, in a split second,
>chosen by the surgeon?)  Personally, I am reasonably satisfied with
>the formula contained in Roe v. Wade; there might be many compromises
>I'd be happy with, but that's one example.  If that formula were
>written into law, I would consider that a good outcome for the great
>abortion debate.

agreed.



-- 


yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu

Newsgroups: ne.politics