From: stevens@eatdust (John Stevens)
Subject: Re: About those UnBornThi
Organization: Oly, Oly Oxen free!  What kind of organization is that!?
Distribution: usa
Date: Mon, 27 Jul 1992 22:57:49 GMT

In article <Jul.24.14.52.04.1992.21661@gandalf.rutgers.edu> shagan@gandalf.rutgers.edu (Susan Hagan) writes:
>>stevens@eatdust (John Stevens) writes:
>>Agreed.  But this is not the issue.  The issue is equal rights.
>
>Exuse me, but when we began, this was part of your arguement.  Your made a 
>big stink about the notion that consenting to sex was consenting to get
>pregnant, and consenting to get pregnant was an implied promise to carry
>the pregnancy to term.

No, I did not.  If you are going to paraphrase me, please be sure that
you have read what I've written, and understand it, first.

I said that consenting to sex was consenting to accept responsibility for
anything that might result.  This could be pregnancy, VD, or just a lot
of fun.

I am NOT anti-abortion.  I am anit-unilateral-abortion.  Abortion is
a viable alternative, but not in it's current form.  I have been arguing
ONE of the possible alternatives (see previous posts), but making
abortion illegal is only one possible alternative.  It is not the only
fair alternative, IMO.

>If you are going to change your mind and agree with me, great.  But don't
>pretend that you agreed with me all along.

I do not agree with you.  Try not to twist what I am saying, and please
read what I write.  You have slapped this big anti-abortion label on
me, conviently ignoring all I've written supporting other possible
alternative scenarios.

That label is so big, and it makes you react so strongly, you cannot even
read what I write.  Calm down, and take another look.

>>Yes, but if your are the sole responsible person (as you have so often
>>stated) and therefore should be the only person who has any rights to
>
>I didn't say I was the sole responsible person.  I said I was the primary
>responsible person.  Big difference.

What is the difference?  What rights do I have in determing the outcome
of the pregnancy, if I am partially responsible, and therefore have
rights in the matter?

>>your body and *YOUR* fetus, it doesn't matter whether I agree to support
>>you and your baby or not.  I should have no responsibility for the
>>products of your body at all.  If I *DO* have responsibility, don't you
>>consider it to be unfair to give me no rights (no say) in the matter?
>
>In light of what I just said, we can consider this point moot.

How so?  I miss your point altogether.

>I don't see that. If we apply the rule that your body is under your
>jurisdiction and my body is under my jurisdiction, then I don't see
>where we have a problem.  In the case of a pregnancy, two people share
>an interest in what occurs in one body, but I think that the owner of that
>particular body should have primary rights and responsibilities and the
>other person should have secondary rights and responsiblities.

And what secondary rights should I have in the body of the woman who is
carrying my child?

>Tell me how this idea could be carried over into any other situation.

>>responded by stating that this is the only ABSOLUTE difference.  Ignoring
>>for the moment that it does not require an absolute difference to pass
>>a law that gives more rights to one or the other sex, we still have to
>
>The government cannot pass a law governing what goes on in a man's uterus, 
>because HE DOESN'T HAVE ONE!

But they can pass a law governing what a man does with his body.  Agreed,
they cannot tell me what to do with my uterus (having none) but they
can tell me what to do with my body.

>>address the other side of the story.  In other words, if the absolute
>>difference is that women bear children, then the absolute difference
>>for men is that they father them.  If bearing the child gives you
>>rights that men should not have, then fathering a child should give
>>the father rights that the woman does not have.
>
>Yes.  You can decide whose children you want to father.

In light of this, then I should be able to require you to abort a child
I did not want to father.

>But to bring the
>plant analogy back.  If you leave *our* plant, in my house because you
>*can not* keep it at your house, do I have to care for it?  No.  If you
>tell me to destroy it, do I have to?  No.  I would give it to you rather than 
>destroy it myself, but since you can't have it, and I don't want it, what 
>choice do I have?

You can return it to me.  Dead, maybe, but if I am willing to accept it
in that condition, you have the moral obligation to do just that.  It is,
after all, as you have said, my plant.

>>Wrong.  In a court of law, emotional damage is OFTEN the basis for a
>>monetary award.
>
>Not wrong.  I said that cannot be *accurately measured, proven, and defended*.
>In court, emotional damage is estimated and financial compensation is
>estimated arbitrarily.

So emotional damage is accepted as a real form of damage.

>>Not ridiculous at all.  An abortion does not make it like you never got
>>pregnant, it TERMINATES a pregnancy.  Aborting would not make it like the
>>sperm and the egg never got together, but it would give the same end
>>result as if the father had had his sperm returned.  After all, you wouldn't
>>be pregnant without that sperm.
>
>But thats not what we're talking about.  You said you wanted your sperm 
>back.  I fully understand that a sperm and ovum, once joined, cannot be
>separated.  

And once pregnant, you cannot become unpregnant, you can only terminate
the pregnancy.  Same difference.

>>Therefore, according to your own reasoning, the father should be able to
>>require you NOT to use his sperm to get pregnant.  This would mean requiring
>>the mother to have an abortion, as it is the only way, with current
>>technology, for this to be done.
>
>Nope.  See, as soon as you try to require someone to do something with
>their body, you step over the line.

Our primary difference is in whether we believe it is wrong to tell
someone what to do with their bodies.  In most cases, we agree.  It is
when a woman gets pregnant that I no longer believe that either the man
OR the woman should have sole say over their bodies.  They are joined
in that fertilized egg.  And according to you, they are joined
irretrievably.

If it is true that it is always wrong to tell another person what to
do with their bodies, then we are back to the 'your body, totally
your responsibility' idea.  And yes, this idea follows from what you've
said.

>Susan R. Hagan (shagan@gandalf.rutgers.edu) 

John
stevens@uswest.com
Newsgroups: alt.abortion.inequity,talk.abortion