From: ray@netcom.com (Ray Fischer)
Subject: Re: Another Dehumanizer Steps Forward....
Followup-To: talk.abortion
Organization: Netcom San Jose
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1992 20:56:56 GMT

note followup

mlbruce@husc8.harvard.edu (Matthew Bruce) writes ...
>ray@netcom.com (Ray Fischer) writes:
>>mlbruce@husc8.harvard.edu (Matthew Bruce) writes ...
>A thousand pardons for trying to oversimplify biology in a 2:00 A.M. post.

Is OK.  I had fun.  :-)

>How exactly, though, do you differentiate between a fetus and a newborn
>other than the fetus' being still attached by umbilical cord.

(slowly) A fetus is _inside_ the mommy, and a newborn is _outside_ the mommy.
Easy, eh?

>(Hypothetical question all you woman-controls-her-body-at-all-costs
>advocates: Suppose the baby has just been delivered, but the umbilical
>cord not yet cut. This baby still derives its nutrition from, and is
>indeed attached to its mother. As such, until the cord is cut, the baby is
>no less a part of the mother's body than it was during pregnancy. Would
>not your arguments make it perfectly acceptable to kill the baby then and
>there, on the grounds that a woman should have the right to control her
>own body?

The point of abortion is _not_ to kill a fetus.  The point of abortion
is to remove the embryo/fetus from the body of the mother.  Given that
1) the baby in your scenario is already outside of the mother's body,
and 2) simply cutting the cord will sever any remaining attachment, no, 
killing the baby would not be acceptable.

Try not to ask such insultingly inane questions.

>>What makes conception the big doo-dah?

>OK. Having seriously erred on my fetal-development chronology argument, I
>must backtrack a bit to establish a creidble, indeed immutable argument.

Good luck.

>Babies have been delivered successfully as early as twenty weeks into
>pregnancy (I believe it was Johns Hopkins, but I'm probably wrong on that

Look up the survival rates, sometime.  5%?
And does this mean that you think abortions up to the 20th week are OK?

>too) which means that by then babies have long since developed the human
>characteristics you refer to. You can trace it back to the formation of
>the fetus itself; granted, not QUITE when conception took place, but
>what's a few hours/days among non-aborted friends?

zygote: a fertilized egg (single cell)
embryo: from the first cell division to about the 8th week.
fetus:  from the 9th week until birth.

>>> True, not all sperm fertilize, not all eggs are
>>>fertilized, but that is beyond our control.
>AAAAAAAAUGH!!! I hate 2AM inaccuracies that come back to haunt the next
>morning....
>>I guess the kid has never heard of masturbation, sex, or contraception.
>Real argument is one thing. Flaming is another. Gratiutous patronism would

Wasn't a flame.  I was just poking fun at your mistake.  Had fun, too.
As for gratiutous patronism being beneath the merits of this service:
you must be kidding.

>seem beneath the merits of this service. However, since you insist, I will
>make my point clear enough for you to understand: in the sex act (which I
>was referring to), of the thousands of sperm released, obviously only one
>can fertilize any given egg, if the egg is even there to be fertilized.

Only one?  Not strictly true, but generally the case.

>I wrote somewhat inaccurately when I spoke of our not having control over
>fertilization: your are right that with contraception we can ensure that
>no eggs are fertilized. Even without contraception, most sperm die
>without fertilizing an egg and, assuming chastity or good luck, most eggs
>depart the female without being fertilized. 

Even with fetilization it may be that most (and certainly many) zygotes/
embryos fail to implant and also depart.

> Not wanting to insult your intelligence, I didn't feel it so
>necessary to elaborate on that point, but evidently the intelligence isn't
>there to be insulted. And as for masturbation, leave that to other news
>boards, please. 

Aside from assertions about my intelligence, I clearly know a little more 
about the details of human reproduction.  Even so, what does all this have
to do with whether an embryo/fetus is a person and whether abortion should
be legal?  I seem to have missed your credible argument.

-- 
Ray Fischer                   "Every improvement in communication
ray@netcom.com                 makes the bore more terrible"  Frank Moore Colby