From: kck+@cs.cmu.edu (Karl Kluge)
Subject: More Re: Dodge _THIS_...
Organization: School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon
Date: Wed, 19 Aug 1992 02:40:00 GMT

> Subject: Re: Dodge _THIS_...
> From: chaneysa@nextnet.csus.edu (Stephen A Chaney)
> Date: 15 Aug 92 20:54:07 GMT
>
> This, also, is one of the things which the majority of Americans do _not_
> want to see, and your efforts to destroy parental rights (which means the
> right to keep a daughter from having an abortion as much as it means the
> right to keep a daughter or son from going to a football game)...

...Or the right to keep a daughter from bringing a fetus to term? I take it
that since you don't believe a minor female is competant to make an informed
decision as to whether or nor to have an abortion, you believe that parents
have the right to force their daughter to have an abortion if they think it
threatens their daughter's health? (Boy, now _there's_ a .sig:  "Steve
Chaney supports forcing children to have abortions against their will")

> B and C are dependent on A. 
> A lot of people are going to have a problem with C, and a lot _more_
> people are going to have a major problem with B. 
> 
> It may be necessary for them to go and rip out A, thus wiping out the
> foundation for B and C. 

As another example of why this logic doesn't work, consider the following
substitutes for A, B, and C:

A: Immunity of military from wrongful death suits (as presently interpreted)

B: Can't sue 2LT Foobar for wrongful death of spouse in combat (people
making command decisions in combat have more important things to worry about
that who's wife is more likely to sue if a mistake is made).

C: The Army can give you LSD without your knowledge or consent as part of an
"experiment", and has no liability for the results.

B and C are dependant on A here, just as in the abortion for minors example.
Most people (I hope) have serious problems with C. Eliminating C by changing
A doesn't necessarily entail eliminating B. The same is true in the abortion
example.

> Which means, pro-choice must defend adult/child sex either directly,
> or indirectly, at its roots, because their roots are common. 

See military liability example above for why this is wrong. Even supposing
SC were right, here he engages in the usual reactionary conservative
strawman ploy of conflating opposing the criminalization of a behavior with
approval or encouragement of the behavior. The two aren't the same. I can
think of few acts more morally reprehensible than standing by idly and
watching someone die when you could save them with little if any risk. I am
not aware of anywhere in the US where it is illegal to do so.

> > FACT: !Privacy (as interpreted) = !legal abortion and 
> >       !legal adult/child sex. 
> 
> It's time to put whoever is teaching you propositional logic on overtime and
> danger pay, Steve. Keeping clear that we are talking about the right to
> privacy in the Florida constitution, I'll agree that 
> 
> 	Privacy (as interpreted) -> (legal abortion && legal adult/minor sex)
> 
> You cannot go from that to your so-called "fact" above. The converse of an
> implication is not always true. 

I realized in the shower that SC's logical monstrosity above isn't even the
converse of "Privacy (as interpreted) -> (legal abortion && legal
adult/minor sex)" (it doesn't DeMorgan the inverse of the consequent
properly, something I suspect Mr. Cheney would like to see illegal in most
states). I have no idea what sound rule of inference he thinks derives his
"fact". As I've already pointed out, producing even one alternative
interpretation of the right to privacy that would preserve age-of-consent
laws while overturning parental consent laws falsifies this so-called
"fact".

Newsgroups: talk.abortion,alt.flame