From: sunder@altair.crhc.uiuc.edu (Srinivas Sunder)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.indian
Subject: Re: Arrogant Indians and Susan Forgach
Date: 7 Sep 1992 16:57:40 GMT
Organization: Center for Reliable and High-Performance Computing, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: altair.crhc.uiuc.edu

In article <1992Sep7.013754.23442@news.columbia.edu>, rgm4@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu (Raghuram G Murtugudde) writes:
|> 
|> Do you really think you made a convincing argument by touting the procedure
|>  involved in hanging a human being that is surely living and breathing as
|>  opposed to a life that is still on its way ? How can sanctity of life
|>  be preserved by going thru a million steps and then executing someone ?

I didn't make or try to make a convincing argument for anyone; just pointed
out the hollowness of your argument in trying to place someone who is presumably
guilty of a crime with someone who (according to the pro-life theology) is an
innocent being,  on the same moral plane. More importantly, it exposes a
contradiction in the pro-choice argument by equating an abortion with the taking
of a life, as opposed to the taking of what is POTENTIAL life. The difference
is as important as life and death; since, if you believe that a fetus IS indeed
a life (as you seem to be doing by equating a hanging with an abortion), there 
are almost no moral and certainly NO legal arguments to be made for destroying 
it. After all, one person's liberty ends where another's life begins.

[Note: I said "... if you believe that a fetus is a life...". I am not
saying that I believe that to be the case or not. ]



|>  Has there ever been a study as to why exactly one human being kills
|>  another human being or commits some grave crime? Are all social/
|>  sociological  or even  biological factors taken into account ?  Just 
|>  because you try a person within the guidelines set up by some other
|>  human beings and find him guilty doesn't justify the killing no matter
|>  how many petitions you allow.

In a society based on the notion that people have rights AND responsibilities,
social and biological conditions are at best mitigating factors. Keep on that
slippery slope, and pretty soon, the notion of personal responsibility is in
the waste-bin of history. And yes, those mitigating factors ARE taken into
account in deciding punishments, and sometimes even to decide guilt and 
innocence.

|>  
|>  I completely agree that a referendum to pass a law on abortion is 
|>  probably the most civil way of ever being able to tackle the monster.
|>  But do men really have a right to tell a woman what to do with a part
|>  of her body ? Can the govt tell you not to chop off your rotting arm
|>  because it is a living thing ? What about the sanctity of a woman's
|>   body ? Does the govt have a right  to shove its hand into her body or 
|>  tell her what to do with that body?
|>  Does the govt have a right to tell you not to masturbate because you are
|>  killing potential babies ?  

As I said before and in my last posting, no one is asking Govt. to intrude
on decisions that they believe involve a woman and her life alone. It is only
when there is a perceived conflict between one person's liberty and another's
life that such interference is being called for. In that case, as in any other
case, the state, being the guarantor of both our liberties and our lives, has
an obligation and a right to step in. It is our duty, as citizens to decide 
where exactly to draw the line separating an abortion from being an expression
of a woman's liberty to do what she wants with her body, and an act that violates
the life of another. Some of us would place that line as the time of conception,
some of us as the time of birth; and most of us at about halfway through the
period of gestation. This being a democracy, the majority view will ultimately
prevail. But unless people talk TO each other as opposed to shouting PAST each
other, we are dsetined to keep hearing about this issue for a lot of time to come.


|>  Conservatives are against social programs not because govt is not a 
|>  smart spender of the tax dollars but because they think the society
|>  is not responsible for the poor. Anyway, this issue is a bit off the

Partly wrong, partly right. The idea is that individual responsibility is
the best way for personal advancement once you have the basic necessities.
In that respect, society is not responsible for its poor beyond creating 
the conditions necessary for personal advancement (i.e. providing the fishing
line for a person to catch fish, as opposed to giving him/her the fish itself).
Conservatives feel that Government is incapable of trying to dole out the fish
itself efficiently and in a manner that benefits the most at a minimum cost, 
i.e. will waste taxpayer dollars and not do a good job; its function is
better confined to teaching people how to fish.

|>  track. But I would definitely be for a law that would force every pro-
|>  lifer to adopt a baby and for the politicians who support the capital
|>  punishment to actually carry out the execution. 

Novel idea. Would be patently unconstitutional though. I wonder too if
the people who do carry out executions are likely to be anti-death-penalty,
thus necessitating the use of a pro-dp politician to carry it out.


|>  Raghu

-- 
Srinivas Sunder                                         sunder@crhc.uiuc.edu

If my employer shares these views, I'd be most surprised.
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