From: regard@hpsdde.sdd.hp.com (Adrienne Regard)
Newsgroups: talk.abortion
Subject: Re: we are forcing women to destroy their babies!!!
Date: 7 Jan 1993 16:56:05 -0800
Organization: Hewlett Packard, San Diego Division
NNTP-Posting-Host: hpsdde.sdd.hp.com

In article <1993Jan7.230813.4253@ncsu.edu> jjprice@eos.ncsu.edu (JEFFREY JAMES PRICE) writes:
>No ofense here...but you were doing so well...when is murder "right"
>unless it is to protect yourself from bodily harm.(ie. A severe risk
>to the mothers life and well being...please note severe I am not talking
>about the normal wear and tear of a pregnacy I am talking life threatening
>or handicaping situation here.) 

why so limited a view?

Now, just assume, just for a moment, that we could pop an aborted fetus
into an auto-mama and bring it to term.  No sweat, and pretty cheap, too.

If this were possible, would women be ALLOWED to 'abort'?  Because, say
they didn't want to be pregnant, or they didn't want to be fat, or because
they were having a bad hair day?  Essentially, because of any reason at all
that you can think of that any woman, even the most stupid and despicable,
might have to be non-pregnant?  After all: the fetus is in her body.
If she *could* remove it from her body, without harming it, wouldn't you
allow her to?

Now, assuming you said yes -- really, what sense would a 'no' answer make?--
WHY did you say yes?

Did you say yes because you agreed with her reason?  Or because, SINCE the
fetus is in her body, and she doesn't want it there, SHE is the one who gets
to say to move it?  Because SHE owns the body.  Isn't that why?

Look at it from another point of view: this stupid and despicable in every
way woman is over 21, and, while admittedly stupid and despicable, is not
either retarded nor insane and thus isn't under the authority of any
guardian or custodian.  Do you think anybody *else* should have the right
and ability to insist her body be operated on, against her will, to move
that fetus from her body to the auto-mama?  And why would that be a 'no'
answer?  Isn't it because that body is *hers* and *hers alone* (to borrow
a phrase)?

Now, sure, we don't have the auto-mama yet, BUT

We sure as hell have women's bodies.  And we sure as hell have women who
own their own bodies and who fully expect to exercise their rights over
their own selves.

Currently, an abortion means the fetus dies.  And that's too bad.  But
surely you can't make a case for giving the fetus rights that NO OTHER
person has over the body of another person.

You would limit your examination to SEVERE physical harm, or death.

I'll point out that, in many cases, rape does not cause severe physical
harm or death, yet it's still an illegal thing, and women are not expected
simply to put up with it's inconvenience.  And this notion springs from
the same well as the abortion issue's autonomy argument.

Ditto Kidnapping.  

>So now that we can kill anyone that uses something of another persons w/o
>their permission we may kill them...I think I'll go out and kill all the
>welfare recipients because they are using my money because I don't want
>them to...

You *do* see a small difference between the living breathing corporeal
physical body of a woman and your inanimate, printed-by-the-goverment 
spending money, don't you?  

You don't get to kill someone who is stealing your TV (except maybe in 
Texas), either, but you sure as hell get to kill someone who is threatening
you physicially.  EVEN when you find out that they weren't threatening you
with death.  The death standard is not universally required for one to
defend oneself, specifically when one's *physical person* (versus one's
property) is involved.


Adrienne Regard

Newsgroups: talk.abortion