From: nyikos@math.scarolina.edu (Peter Nyikos)
Subject: Re: The Nurturing Network 1-800-TNN-4MOM
Organization: USC  Department of Computer Science
Date:  4 Sep 92 23:53:45 GMT

In <1992Sep1.011343.29500@midway.uchicago.edu> eeb1@ellis.uchicago.edu (e elizabeth bartley) writes:

>I am reposting this article and will continue to do so until Suzanne
>Forgach either publically apologizes to me for claiming that I've lied
>to myself (about what abortion is) or publically declines to do so.

>--- --- ---
>In article <1992Aug21.185107.9237@noao.edu>
>forgach@noao.edu (Suzanne Forgach) writes:
>>From article <+shys6=@rpi.edu>, by cookc@aix.rpi.edu (rocker):

>>> Never once have I given you a single indication to think I was a
>>> liar.  

>>Cathi, ALL pro-choicers lie to themselves, at least a little bit, about
>>what abortion actually IS.

>Gee, Suzanne, thanks for calling me a liar, too.  Have any evidence
>besides that I disagree with you wrt the worth of a z/e/f?

Excuse me for intruding, but I would like to try to clarify something.

Elizabeth, your sincerity in what you write below is beyond reproach.
I disagree with some of your premises, but they too were sincerely arrived
at. 

What troubles me is something you do not write about below.  You wrote
in another post that after viability you would still allow abortion to
preserve a woman's life OR HEALTH.  I asked you what the word "health"
meant to you specifically, but that may have been one of the early SC
posts which defaulted to the local net, so I never saw your answer, if any,
so I am asking you again.

If your answer is that you agree with the broad Doe v. Bolton definition,
well, I won't go so far as to say you are lying to yourself about what
abortion is, but on the other hand I can also see why Suzanne might not
wish to apologize to you.

>You know, I got a *lot* more comfortable with abortion when I started
>reading embryology books.  Something to do with myelination and how
>late in pregnancy a fetus's brain begins to be capable of significant
>functioning.

>The abortion issue is one of opinion and priorities.  It's generally
>agreed that the egg and sperm don't have a full set of human DNA, that
>zygotes do, that viability occurs before birth, that most e/fs will be
>people at some time in the future (whether or not they are people
>now), that pregnancy can sometimes greatly endanger women's lives,
>that myelination takes place at 23-24 weeks, that 8 week embryos are
>recognizably humanoid, that most pregnancies conceived by rape would
>be very hard on the woman, etc., etc.  The dispute here is how much
>these various facts matter.  Even if *you* have definitive evidence
>that *your* opinions are correct ones - something I certainly do not
>believe - others are not lying to themselves by believing otherwise
>unless they have the same definitive evidence.

>I want an apology, Suzanne, for your accusation that I am lying to
>myself in my belief that the most crucial step in a z/'s development
>is myelination rather than birth.  My opinion may be incorrect, but I
>arrived at it by honestly and thoroughly considering all the evidence
>I have.

>--
>Pro-Choice                 Anti-Roe                     - E. Elizabeth Bartley
>            Abortions should be safe, legal, early, and rare.

>--- --- ---

>Thanks to those patient enough to have read this far.

>General note: I may be *wrong* wrt the mortality of abortion.
>However, my opinion is honest and not based on self-deception, and I
>am furious that Mrs Forgach would think she knows me better than know
>myself on this point.

I can understand why you are furious, but please think about what
I have said too.

>-- 
>Pro-Choice                 Anti-Roe                     - E. Elizabeth Bartley
>            Abortions should be safe, legal, early, and rare.

>Cthulhu for President -- when you're tired of voting for the lesser of 2 evils.
By the way, who or what is Cthulhu?

Peter Nyikos


Newsgroups: talk.abortion