From: chall@eco.twg.com (Charles Don Hall)
Subject: Re: Technology and abortion
Organization: The Wollongong Group (East Coast Operations)
Distribution: na
Date: Tue, 7 Apr 92 18:32:05 GMT

In <1992Apr6.184622.26121@hellgate.utah.edu> tolman%asylum.utah.edu@cs.utah.edu (Kenneth Tolman) writes:

>I am not trying to support either side of this argument here, rather, I am
>trying to nullify both sides.  This is based on the conjecture of 
>technologies advance, which may or may not occur:

>1) Living outside the womb:  [cryonic suspension and revival]
>2) Effective birth control:  [self-explanatory]
>3) Virtual Sex:   [simulated sex across a modem link]

>It seems that the abortion question could already be a non-issue. (Given
>cryonic suspension and later revival is viable)  However, it is clear
>that any one of the above technologies would eliminate the issue.  So 
>instead of rallying, shooting and blowing things up, support some research.
>Both sides can win.

Well, this would be a victory for the pro-choice side, but not for the
pro-lifers. Many of them are opposed to effective birth control, and
I bet most of them are opposed to virtual sex...it would be like having
sex with an inflatable love doll, except you'd be on the inside. (I
don't put much stock in your other suggestion, of cryogenically freezing
embryos, because we all know that they'll never get thawed out!)

If you look over postings from pro-lifers, you see that their solution
to the abortion problem is not to have sex outside of marriage, and not
to have sex if you aren't ready to have children. If you're only a little
bit ready to have children, you can use contraceptives (maybe!), but if 
they fail, you'd better become ready to have children FAST. 

This was good advice 300 years ago. You didn't have to abstain from sex,
because you got married at 14, and had sex until your partner died in
childbirth, died of the plague, or died in whatever war was being fought.
With luck, a few of your children would survive to adulthood. In no
event was overpopulation a matter of concern. The Church recognized 
this, and converted the rules from "good advice" to "moral law". (The
prohibitions against homosexuality, birth control, and masturbation 
came from this, too. If you don't have your quota of children, then
your neighbors have to work harder to compensate.)

Today, on the other hand, people get married and have children much
later. There is good reason for this. With modern medical technology, 
if you start having kids at 14, then you can easily (:-\) raise a
dozen or so to adulthood. Of course, you won't have the money to
educate them properly, but they'll be perfectly qualified for jobs
as subsistance farmers or cannon fodder (or a career in the exciting
world of fast food). Maybe one or two will have the motivation and
natural ability to work their way through college. Maybe not. It 
doesn't really matter, because in two generations, the population
will increase 100-fold, and we'll all die regardless of our educational
level. The trouble is, the "good advice" has changed, but the "moral
law"...as seen by the Church...hasn't. God is unchanging, so what
was good for tribal nomads must be equally good for modern city-dwellers.
Hmmph.

In short: "No sex before marriage" is good advice if you're
going to be married at 14. It is ludicrous if you're going to be
married at 27 (unless you're one of those lucky people who has a
minimal sex drive). It is also ludicrous for modern city-dwellers to
marry at 14. The most ludicrous thing of all is for the Church to
accept the benefits of modern medicine (such as an increased life
span) without accepting the associated responsibilities (such as
the need for a practical method of limiting the size of the population.)

I do have good news, though. Organized religions get their moral
laws from tradition, and tradition only lags a few generations
behind reality. Many religious bodies are reversing their opposition
to birth control and abortion, and I imagine that within 100
years, these issues will be as dead as Geocentricism.  (Of course,
there will be lots of pickets and explosions at the Artificial 
Intelligence labs, the Genetic Engineering clinics, and, yes, the
Virtual Sex arcades. 

-- 

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Charles Don Hall, Licensed Philosopher  (chall@eco.twg.com)
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