From: frank@D012S436.sniap.mchp.sni.de ()
Subject: Re: Abortion vs. Adoption
Organization: Siemens-Nixdorf AG
Date: Wed, 9 Sep 92 13:50:32 GMT

dking@raul.nas.nasa.gov (Dan King) writes:
: fo>The conclusion I would draw from Kathi saying she feels fine is that
: fo>she knows a situation in which abortion is O.K..  Doesn't mean it's
: fo>always O.K. (though it may be).  Means it's at least sometimes O.K.
: 
: I no longer have your post I was responding to.  As I remember it, you
: said if there was one woman that felt O.K. about her own abortion
: experience, then you would not consider abortion = murder.  Now I may
: have assumed to much.  I may have assumed that at the time you did
: believe abortion was murder.  All you asked for was one and Kathi
: supplied you with the one example.  Could we at least now resolve
: if you do or don't believe abortion=murder?

I believe that it can be shown that cases exist where abortion is not  
only not murder, but not wrong, and I believe that by putting the case 
in terms of the woman's own conscience, it can be shown in such a way 
that believers of many faiths and none cannot reasonably refute it.

And by the way, it's scary that pro-choicers would pick up on 
such a proposal  as a *pro-life* argument.  It reads a little 
like "Oh my God, not the conscience thing again, that can only 
be a pro-life argument, because everyone knows women have guilty 
consciences about their abortions...".  I can only assume that with 
the exception of Kathi you all got a little flame happy.

[delete]

: Law should be designed to resolve conflicts
: between conflicting rights.  In the case of abortion, their is the right of
: the fetus to life, versus the right of the woman to control her body.  For
[delete]
: When a woman is faced with an unwanted pregnancy, the people that have a stake
: to terminate or not would be, the woman, her doctor, the man, or the government.
: Of those 4 choices, I see the one most qualified, and best able to make this
: decision is the woman.   I see many dangers in leaving the decision to any
: of the other 3.

You said that there is a conflict between the rights of the fetus 
(to life) and the rights of the mother (to control her own body).   
That's fine, but do you see the rights of the fetus represented in 
this setup?

In fact, your position is only tenable if you believe that a fetus has
no rights whatsoever. A reasonable view to hold, but not in conjunction
with the notion that the fetus has a right to life!  In fact, you do 
_not_ believe the fetus has a right to life, not ever.  Because if the woman 
is always left to choose, the fetus has no representation at all, and that
doesn't worry you.  

And in fact the belief that the fetus possesses rights (of any kind) 
does not seem compatible with a belief in "the woman's right to choose".  
You can't believe in both, you have to pick one.  Unless you believe 
that the rights of the fetus are always outweighed by those of the 
woman (another reasonable view), in which case those rights of the fetus 
seem rather academic.  Why grant someone a right, when you will never allow 
them to exercise it?

In short, if you sincerely want to balance the rights of one person against 
the rights of another person, you won't leave the decision to one of the 
parties involved. 

So by all means defend a woman's right to choose, but not in
the same breath as the "fetus' right to life".

: Dan King
--
Frank O'Dwyer		       			Disclaimer: 
Siemens-Nixdorf AG 	                        I will deny everything
Tel.  : +49 (89) 636-40639                      Fax.  : +49 (89) 636-45860
e-mail: Frank.ODwyer@sniap.mchp.sni.de <--Use this, reply-to is broken