From: bense@oasys.dt.navy.mil (Ron Bense)
Newsgroups: talk.abortion
Subject: Re: Rational Discussion (Re: In defense of the supposedly indefensible)
Date: 8 Oct 92 20:14:28 GMT
Reply-To: bense@oasys.dt.navy.mil (Ronald Bense)
Distribution: usa
Organization: Carderock Division, NSWC, Bethesda, MD

In talk.abortion, lebow@psl.nrl.navy.mil writes:
>In article <26143@oasys.dt.navy.mil> bense@oasys.dt.navy.mil (Ron Bense)
>writes:

>is between two equal entities - Mother vs Child.  Subjugation implies superior
>over inferior.  Furthermore, I'll admit that even if you were to agree that an

That is one of the arguments against pro-life, that one life is held
superior to another's, and allows the trompling of the subjected's (mother's)
rights. When you argue that one person cannot remove from their body
a second person, and this only applies to a small subset of the population,
you are in effect promoting superior rights for the subjector over the
subjectee. I've yet to see an argument to counter this underlying fact,
and it is an ugly fact.

>Ambiguous in the sense that your discussion re: status of fetus as human seems
>totally irrelevant to your ultimate conclusion of `mother's choice no matter
>what'.  Why bother to express an opinion on the personhood of a fetus if it
>doesn't bear on your reasoning?

It doesn't bear on my reasoning, but it bears on the reasoning of those
who wish to remove that right. Therefore, into the fray I go. Since
the end result is to uphold the rights I view as important, there is
really nothing ambiguous about me arguing any of those points.

>In this explanation you mention the possible use of cloning human cells - maybe
>even the possibility of having these cloned cells develope into a human being.
>I understand that the intent was to smoothy associate  a cell from human skin,
>for instance, with the initial cell of the developing embryo, but I'm sorry I
>have a lot of trouble with this extention.  The deliberate act of initiating

Actually it was an attempt to equate them, to remove the "specialness"
of the one cell (fertilized egg) in comparison to any other. I will
e-mail you Bruce Cameron's post about cells, as it has been posted several
times in the last month. It has further points wrt this.

>the gestation cycle, whether natural or artificial, carries with it extreme
>ethical responsibilities.  I feel this in by no means a logical extention of
>your reasoning but rather a cataclysmic and *irreversable* occurance.

Actually, the gestation cycle is started all the time in the laboratory,
it just isn't transplanted to a uterus very often. No one has any trouble
at all throwing away those clumps of cells. Also, I know they've been
working on cloning without the benefit of any other natural organic
matter (read this as a fertilized egg having the nucleus removed and
a new one inserted, the most common form of cloning just s few years
ago) and only using artificially produced organics. How far this effort
might have come, I don't know. (Haven't kept up on my reading) Further
more, the fact that a clone can be generated by removing the nucleus
from a fertilized egg or the cell from an early blastocyst and placing 
another in its place brings up another question. Was anyone (or thing) 
killed? What about the case where this is done to a two-cell blastocyst
(so that two sets of genetic information exist) which then is allowed
to go on and develop into a single organism? Was anyone killed here?
Or is the single organism really two organisms? (It has two sets of
genetic material)

>Inseperable Siamese twins come very close this relationship.  I think, however,

No, they differ in one very important fact. They developed simultaneously,
and coexist. They are symbiotic, not a host/parasite relationship. After
all, whose heart, lungs, stomach, legs, arms, liver, or kidneys are
doing what for whom? Who was first? What belongs to whom?

>Could you stomach attending a Feminists For Life meeting?  I can probably
>arrange it.

Well, we're near enough geographically, so that's not a problem. Question
is, would I want (could I bear) to attend one. Let me think that one
over, as I've got a few other things I need to do (my girlfriend would
kill me if I summarily removed another day from an already sparse schedule
for seeing her, esp for this reason!:) and maybe I can fit it in in
a month or so.

Ron                          Think about this one (seen on a bumper sticker):
			     The road to hell is bumper-to-bumper
			     Make a U-turn to God.
The irony is priceless.
Newsgroups: talk.abortion