From: kevin@rotag.mi.org (Kevin Darcy)
Newsgroups: talk.abortion
Subject: Re: Spoken Like a True ProLifer
Date: 7 Jan 93 16:06:33 GMT
Organization: Who, me???

In article <C0FAKM.1rE@news.cso.uiuc.edu> vengeanc@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu () writes:
>
>Let me make this plain and simple.  If you start with the premise that
>the preborn baby is a person, then all other considerations are moot.
>For example: if you had a choice between sacrificing your leg, or sacrificing
>your mother, which would you choose?  I'd sacrifice my leg.  

That's a fine and noble choice, "vengeanc", but why can't you accept that
others in the same situation might choose to keep their leg and sacrifice their 
mother? Why do you insist on imposing your subjective, personal morality on 
others?

>Murder is wrong.  

Yes, but murder implices malice, and I see no evidence that pregnant women
bear malice against the fetuses they seek to abort. Most of them are saddened
by the loss of potential life, actually.

>It is my contention that the preborn baby is a person, and that it deserves
>all rights implied by that label.  

"People", whether born or not, do not have the right to compel others into
Bodily Servitude, "vengeanc". For the sake of argument, I'm willing to accept
that fetuses should have the SAME rights as born people. What I'm not willing
to accept, however, is that fetuses should have MORE rights than born people
and/or that their rights should automatically OVERRIDE those of a born person, 
i.e. the pregnant woman. In fact, I'd be more inclined to call those "fetal
PRIVILEGES" rather than "rights" at all.

>Compassion? Of course I have compassion.  But just when does compassion
>warrant murder?  Since when does any mother have the right to have her
>child MURDERED to protect herself from a medical problem?  Its easy
>for you to talk about being compassionate.  Why not try a little compassion
>for that poor baby you want hacked into little pieces.  

No malice, no murder. As for "compassion", why should I feel compassion for
an unsuffering blob of tissue? Or, more poignantly, why should I feel MORE
compassion for an unsuffering blob of tissue than I do for the living,
breathing, suffering woman who unwillingly carries it?

>>You seem to think that a woman incurs the responsibility
>>to suffer _any_ amount of physical damage, up to, and possibly
>>including _death_ (since we'd sacrifice all the women whose
>>deaths could not be predicted with certainty) as a result
>>of consensual sex.  What equivalent _physical_ responsibility
>>do you propose for a man who has sex?  If you say he has to
>>support the kid, how does that differ from the mother's duty
>>to support the kid?
>
>The woman incurs the responsibility to suffer virtually any amount of
>physical damage, yes.  

When you drive an automobile, do you incur "the responsibility to suffer
any amount of physical damage"? If you were seriously wounded in an auto
crash, would you forgo medical treatment? Why then do you think that the
mere fact of having sex should incur such a burdensome obligation, and
that the woman should be forbidden from using medical technology to
relieve that burden? What is the inherent difference, in terms of liability
incurred, between "having sex" and "driving an automobile"?

>There is no way to make a man physically
>at risk for his partners pregnancy.  The father has a financial and
>moral responsibility towards his children.  

Why is genetic similarity a valid basis for child support liability?
If the next baby found abandoned in a trash dumpster was genetically
similar to you, even though you weren't actually its parent, do you think
it would be valid to charge you its child support? Seems to me that 
liability is USUALLY assigned because either a) the liable party voluntarily 
accepted their liability, or b) the liable party committed a negligent act
causing damage. Do these traditional legal bases for liability apply in ALL 
child support cases? Not nearly. In most disputed paternity child support 
cases, we can't assume (a) unless we have it in writing, and as for (b), the 
woman who fails to abort, despite the fact that the abortion option is a safe 
and legal one, would seem to incur FAR greater liability than the man, whose 
negligent causation, if any, was roughly equal to the woman's up until the 
point of conception, and completely IMPOSSIBLE between conception and birth.

								- Kevin
Newsgroups: talk.abortion