From: billb@owlnet.rice.edu (William Stenson Blackwell)
Newsgroups: houston.general,tx.politics,rice.politics
Subject: The Big Debate *real long* (was Re: Anti-choice vs. Pro-abortion (was Re: Houston Defending Choice Coalition needs you)
Keywords: I'm sure there's an opening helping clinics for a 6'1" guy that
Date: 20 Aug 92 00:40:05 GMT
Distribution: tx
Organization: Rice University

weighs upwards of a Volkswagen, and can bench press selfsame conveyance.  
Mail me.

In article <exuptr.337.714255422@exu.ericsson.se>, exuptr@exu.ericsson.se (Patrick Taylor) writes:
|> In article <1992Aug19.141416.17804@menudo.uh.edu> moore@uhibpd.phys.uh.edu (Lorra L. Moore) writes:
|> 
|> >Want to know what happens to unwanted children that aren't
|> >planned on and really wanted by healthy people?  Listen to the news.
|> >when was the last time a baby was found in a dumpster? Last week, a
|> >month ago?  Well, the prolifers helped bring it to term.  
|> 
|> So did an irresponsible mother, don't forget.  The babies don't just
|> materialize out of the political soup.
|> 
|> Your implication is probably correct.  Some of these instances would
|> probably have been abortions.  My contention is that neither solution is
|> a good one.  So rather than give someone a choice of abortion, let's give
|> them plenty of palatable, living solutions.  And don't tell me it will
|> never work.  That kind of negativism is part of the problem.
|> 
|> >Aren't they
|> >proud of themselves?  Just think, they brought it into this world so it
|> >could suffer.. .what a noble cause [This is sarcasm for those that
|> >missed it].
|> 
|> Just think...the mother conceived it so that it could suffer in the hands of 
|> a physician or in a dumpster, alone...what wonderful choices.
I hate myself for getting involved in this, BUT.....

(pre-Disclaimer: I don't have the exact statistics handy, but I'm sure someone
out there does, so please post them in a separate, non-threatening, non-biased
followup)

The problem with your assumptions is that there are viable means of raising
such a child in our society.  This is false.  There are, at present, three
viable means of disposing of an unwanted pregnancy (sorry for the wording,
but let's be realistic...this is exactly what's going on.): 1) Abortion 
2) Adoption 3) Rear it one's self.  Of the first, I think that way too much
attention is being given to the detriment of the latter pair.  

Adoption is the rallying cry of the Pro-Life forces.  They argue that there
aren't enough babies for people to go around who want them, so that the 
people who don't wish to treasure this gift from heaven should be forced to
supply to those who aren't blessed with the ability to conceive children.
I have seen several couples like this, (they'll even appear on the talk show
of your choice about once a quarter) and almost invariably, they are white,
upper middle class to lower upper class.  This is the prime demographic group
for the Republican party (to tie in almost all sub-threads on this).  However,
very few of these couples will even consider some other child that's not 
the exact "model" that they want.  There are a tremendous amount of babies
out there who won't be adopted due to the fact that their mothers were crack
addicts (and, oh yes, some other color besides white), or they missed the 
"prime" adoption years (maybe due to too much supply...), and have been 
shuffled between orphanages and foster homes all of their lives.  In my mind,
it is criminal to make someone else do your bidding, sacrificing what could be
their entire future, simply because you don't like the color of bodywork on the
car.  If this analogy angers you, then also realize that the reason that so 
many of these kids go un-adopted is because they need extensive post-natal care
and/or aren't the right race (mom and dad like to kid themselves that they 
might've actually have had something similar to little junior there if only...)
Both of these choices are indeed of an economic nature, and thus deserve the 
callousness with which I give them.  They have no right to inflict their 
economic desires upon another's civil rights.  When there is a genuine shortage
of ALL babies, then I will reconsider.  But until then, let's not kid ourselves
that Mr. and Mrs. John Q. Midwest are going to actually adopt a baby that 
doesn't look like it came from their own factory.

As to the second oft neglected option, this is precisely what our twisted 
welfare system pays people to do.  It is actually profitable for a mother
to carry her child to term in an effort to ensure to continuance of Government
Subsidies (this should equate to almost all pro-Lifers being pro-choice as
Welfare Reform and Cadillac Queens are two of their favorite domestic
policy buzzwords).  This is pathetic.  If the current administration would
actually allow for public subsidized abortion, then neither would there be a 
great crisis in welfare, nor would the burgeoning ranks of the poor be so hard
pressed to relate to the values of a traditional family.  As it stands now,
it is actually more beneficial for a couple to stay unmarried and crank out 
kids, than to actually commit to one another, raise viable, hard-working 
members of society who don't feel the need to join gangs and kill kids.

Either way (here's where I wish someone would publish the demographic breakdown
of people who have abortion), if I remember correctly, minority women,
predominantly black, have a much greater chance of having an abortion than your
typical consumer of adoptable babies.  If one would quit limiting the argument
solely to the actual act, and actually take a wider view of the whole picture,
then I think that you will finally be able to make a rational argument for
the abolition of abortion.  If you also put the same fervor into marches
proclaiming the death penalty wrong, then I salute you.  You actually do
have a conscience, and are fully entitled to an attempt to alleviate your
guilt.  However, I don't see too many of the pro-lifers being anti-capital
punishment.  Those people I despise.  It takes a special kind of sadist to 
condemn a race to economic servitude, then delight when that selfsame race is 
forced into dire measures to alleviate their distress, gets caught and is 
killed by for violating the societal values that forced them into it.  This is 
truly sick, and deserves contempt.  Respect everyone else's values, realize
that there is no current scientific evidence that says you are actually killing
a sentient entity with abortion.  Your appendix will not live either if it's
removed, yet that's not murder.  I won't trivialize the issue by saying that
the choice is that simple, in fact it's much more complex.  So, quite trying to
inflict your values on others.  "Your rights stop where mine begin...".

[Just to further confuse the issue: I also find it very hypocritical for
people to march against the Death Penalty and to be Pro-Abortion (notice I
didn't say Pro-Choice).  Just for the record, I AM pro capital punishment.]

-- 
Bill Blackwell             P H P <==me!   "A just request is to be met
billb@owlnet.rice.edu     F L L F       in silence, by the act."
Houston, Texas, USA          8       -Dante Alighieri "Inferno" XXIV ln.77-78
"My opinions are mine, no one else is that stupid"
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