From: ray@netcom.com (Ray Fischer)
Newsgroups: alt.activism.d
Subject: Re: "Snapple" Anti-Choice?
Date: 29 Sep 92 19:36:41 GMT
Organization: Netcom San Jose

[I've changed the order of Mark Gansle's post to make my reply
easier to follow]

zeus@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Mark Gansle) writes ...
>There seems to me that there are four main positions on abortion:
>
>Let's examine these positions, shall we?

>1) Abortion on demand: abortion is always OK through all nine mos. of
>pregnancy

>1)  I think none but the most calloused among us can seriously believe that
>abortion up until live birth is acceptable, as this requires delivery to
>be a prerequisite to humanity/life.  How can on argue that 3 inches separates
>a child from rights and no rights?  

How can anyone argue that having sex separates a woman from rights and
no rights?

>2) Abortion until some arbitrary date (ie Roe v Wade) decided upon through
>political consensus or compromise

>2) This is morally repugnant; how can the worth of a person be decided by
>poltical debate.  This reminds me of the incredibly stupid (and extremely
>immoral) Three-Fifths Compromise.  This also does not suffice to answer the
>question of abortion.

Funny, this one.  A vision of of the President walking down the street
surrounded by his entourage of advisors, security, cars, helicopters,
and the like, while across the street a bag lady watches from the shelter
of a doorway.

>3) Abortion until date of viability, ie ability of fetus to live outside of
>womb

>3) This position is a bit slick, because it ties in science to morality and
>makes the moral position seem rational.  But let me ask you this:  how do you
>feel about having your morality determined immediately by existing levels of
>technology, with the realization that you are necessarily morally inferior to
>subsequent generations?  As technology improves, viability will become earlier
>and earlier, and future moral leaders will look down upon us as neanderthals
>for not realizing that a fetus could live and thus was life.  I have a big
>objection to my morality being tied to scientific progress.

Yup.  All those early followers of Christ were really immoral since they
let their kids die of smallpox and measles and malnutrition, instead of
feeding and vaccinating them.  Shocking.

>4) Abortion is always wrong (Note that this group has among it those who
>make exceptions for rape and incest because they feel sorrier for the mother
>than the child)

>4) Which leaves us with the only alternative: the consistent belief that
>the point of conception creates a genetically unique individual who is
>deserving of protection of life.  Conception is the point when the DNA
>involved becomes uniquely Other, and it is the point where life can begin

Not correct, as we shall see.  For now I'll merely point out that 
conception is not a "point" but a process, and this process does not 
occur in negligable time.

>(there is no danger of protection of eggs and sperm since 1. they are not
>unique as they are only one's own cells and 2. there is no chance a sperm will
>gestate into a human child).

All sperm and eggs are genetically unique.  Each contains a different
subset of the man's/woman's genes.  Further, there _is_ a chance that
the egg alone will gestate.

>  Either abortion is right, in which case it
>is right all the time and enough about the indecision and trauma faced by
>women having to make such a painful decision--it takes very little investment
>to actually create life, so it's not like she's missing out on her only
>chance--and quit pansying around with limits and restrictions.  Or else
>abortion is wrong, in which case the fetus is a life worthy of protection
>and shut up about "except..." or "after..."

You didn't really mean to imply that giving birth "takes very little 
investment", did you?  If so, than the level of ignorance betryed by 
this one statement alone discredits pretty much everything else you
have to say.

>If I've missed a position let me know!

Pragmatism counts for a lot.  We choose birth for legal personhood
because it is clear, traditional, and most importantly unambiguous.
Also, pragmatically we bestow (morally) some degree of rights to a
late term fetus because it _can_ often be separated from the mother 
without killing it.

To choose conception as the moment of personhood is absurd if only 
for all the problems it introduces.

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