From: gordons@netcom.com (Gordon Storga)
Subject: Re: Christian Pro-Choicers
Followup-To: talk.abortion
Organization: Gizmonic Institute - Home of the "Big G Burger"
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1993 09:08:31 GMT

<Jan26.005417.28864@yuma.ACNS.ColoState.EDU> sa114984@longs.LANCE.ColoState.Edu (Steven Arnold) writes:
><1993Jan22.190931.15939@netcom.com>, gordons@netcom.com (Gordon Storga) writes:
>|> <Jan22.051516.23966@yuma.ACNS.ColoState.EDU> sa114984@longs.LANCE.ColoState.Edu (Steven Arnold) :
>|> ><1993Jan14.074343.13799@netcom.com>, gordons@netcom.com (Gordon Storga) :
>|> >|> <1993Jan9.063657.20201@noao.edu> forgach@noao.edu (Suzanne Forgach) :
>|> >|> >                                                 There are plenty of
>|> >|> >non-religious reasons available for being pro-life, so that no one need
>|> >|> >lean on any mystic, unseen, unexplainable, religious idea to be so.
>|> >|> >I'd say most prominent would be all the photographic, videographic, and
>|> >|> >sonographic images now available to anyone brave enough to look.  What
>|> >|> >they all show us is a child of great beauty and grace, the future of
>|> >|> >the human race, something of of great value.
>|> >|> 
>|> >|> What those videos and sonograms show is a fetus which barely resembles a
>|> >|> human being, let alone a child.  A fetus is an ugly thing, with veins
>|> >|> and organs visible through the skin, a head much too large for it's body,
>|> >|> webbed digits, eyes on the side of it's head (sealed shut), with a pulsing
>|> >|> conduit of flesh sticking out of it's stomach.  Let's put it this way, if
>|> >|> an adult walking down the street had even half these characteristics I
>|> >|> doubt you'd be referring to them as "beautiful and graceful".
>|> >
>|> >	And because the unborn child, in your VERY humble opinion, is "ugly," it
>|> >does not and should not have a right to life.  
>|> 
>|> Bzzt!  Wrong!  I was not attempting to assign life and death values based
>|> on looks alone.  I was merely pointing out to Suzanne that a fetus is ugly
>|> by almost any standard of physical beauty you care to name.
>
>	So you admit that your comments regarding the appearance of the fetus
>had nothing whasoever to do with the issue.  Where you could have said, Suzanne,
>the appearance of the fetus is irrelevant, you instead elaborated at length on
>YOUR opinion of the fetus' appearance.  You countered sweet sentimentalism with
>sour sentimentalism, and added nothing to the debate but heat.

Yeah, what's your point?

...
>|> >	Gordon, very old people are ugly in some people's MOST uninformed
>|> >opinions.  That doesn't make them non-persons.  Some people think Jews are
>|> >ugly; some people think Scots are ugly; some people think blacks are ugly;
>|> >heck, some people even think Native Americans are ugly.  
>|> >	Don't use such a pitiful argument again.
>|> 
>|> Yo Steve, check the top of this post again and you'll notice that Suzanne
>|> was using appearances as a basis for her being pro-life.  She cites the 
>|> "great beauty and grace" of a fetus as a reason for being pro-life.  She
>|> is the one you should be reprimanding, not me.
>
>	At best, you were countering bullshit with bullshit, which does not move
>the discussion forward, but does create enmity.  

Yeah, what's your point?

>                                                 At worst, you really thought at
>the time that your opinion regarding the unborn child's "ugliness" had something
>to do with the issue, in which case the post was not merely pointless and
>aggravating, but actively foolish as well.  But you deny that was your intent,
>and I'll buy that, because I don't believe you're stupid.  Nevertheless, the post
>was still pointless and unnecessarily aggravating.

The "issue" that I saw was Suzanne claiming that the most prominent reason
for being pro-life was that the fetus was "beautiful".  That is, a) a
terrible reason to impose oppressive invasive laws on 53% of the
population, and b) it is not even a widely held opinion (the beauty of a
fetus).

>|> But I doubt you'll respond to this post.  Many pro-lifers have been
>|> ignoring my responses lately (Suzanne, Nyikos, Chaney).  I can only 
>|> assume they have no argument.
>
>	Of course I'll respond to any of your posts I think make a point of
>sufficient merit to deserve a response, as well as to posts that are so
>greivously misguided that they must be publicly corrected.  You've made some of
>both.

Thanks.

>	Non-response hardly implies you've made unanswerable arguments, 

No, but it usually causes one of them to finally respond.

>	                                                                and the
>assumption seems to indicate something about how you view your position in
>general: you exaggerate the strengths of your arguments beyond recognition, and
>you completely ignore their weaknesses.

I use exageration to show the inanity of some of the pro-life arguments.
Please point out the weakness of any of my arguments for being pro-choice.

>	My original impression was that you seriously believed that your opinion
>of the unborn child's beauty mattered, and I was deeply disappointed that you
>would make such an argument.  I see now that your post was still bad, but not
>quite that bad!....

No, I don't care about what a fetus looks like.  Suzanne was asking us to
except the "beauty" of a fetus as reason for imposing restrictive laws on
women.  I don't buy it.  I'd hope you wouldn't either.

Follow-ups to talk.abortion since there is nothing religious about this
post anymore 'cept the subject line.

Gordon
-- 
The opinions expressed are my own, and not the beliefs or opinions
of whatever company you think I work for.  So there, thhhbbbt!
Message to Kodak:  Freedom for Dan Bredy.
Newsgroups: talk.abortion