From: beaver@castor.cs.psu.edu (Don Beaver)
Subject: Re: Father Notification Reconsidered
Date: Sat, 5 Sep 1992 19:37:31 GMT

In article <1992Sep4.155842.10685@advtech.uswest.com> steven@jaynes ( Steve Novak) writes:
>> = (Don Beaver) writes:
>>> = ( Steve Novak) writes:
>
>>>I feel sorry for any woman dumb enough to fall for a walking time bomb
>>>like you, Will.
>
>>That's what I like about this group: intelligent repartee.     :-|
>
>That's what I dislike about you, Beaver: your dishonest editing.
>
>Maybe if you'd left in Steeves' comment about KILLING a woman "on the
>spot" for not telling him about an abortion 'til a year later, then most
>people would understand my reply.
>
>I can't beLIEVE you didn't give Steeve' shit for HIS anti-women comment.
>Speaks volumes on what you think is important.
>-- 
>+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
>| Steve Novak |    |"Wacker the K"| 
>+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
>steven@advtech.USWest.Com


Mr. "Wacker the K,"

I quoted your article in its entirety, to avoid any "dishonest" editing.

First, let me state that killing someone is unacceptable.
You conveniently seem to have omitted part of what Mr. Steeves said:

|You *might* even be angry enough
|to be driven to violence as well, especially if the delay had been long, so
|before condemning me for making such a strong and unambiguous statement, please
|consider the context within which I made it.

I understood his statement to have two points:

1.  To demonstrate that the disrespect shown by a woman who fails to
notify her husband that she destroyed their offspring is an outrage.

2.  To use an outrageous but not necessarily literal statement 
to express his anger.  


If someone threw your child in a Department of Public Works tree shredder,
would you think it surprising to say, "I'll rip his throat out?"
"Strong and unambiguous" may argue for the literality of the statement,
but it isn't necessarily more than a strong and unambiguous statement
of anger.

I wouldn't be surprised at such a reaction, but I also wouldn't accept 
vigilante behavior.  The fact that I wouldn't be surprised doesn't 
mean I accept violence.


>I can't beLIEVE you didn't give Steeve' shit for HIS anti-women comment.
>Speaks volumes on what you think is important.

Mr. Steeves' statement was not so much anti-women as 
anti-outrageous-disrespect, unless +you+ assume it is typical
and decent for a woman to abort and not to tell her husband.
It is a popular but sexist attitude to assume that any statement
made against a woman represents an anti-women stance.

I believe respect is important, but it is not to be legislated.
I also believe the legal nature of marriage requires full information 
for its participants.  If the woman doesn't want to inform her husband, 
let her break her contract and get a divorce (thereby avoiding any
"walking time bombs").  You might even think it would be a better thing, 
if such gross fears existed.


The part that prompted your personal attack was, I presume:

[steeves]
|And with God or Allah (whomever) as my witness, I will say that in my own
|situation, if the woman had *not* been so respecting as to tell me before,
|but in fact had not only told me right afterwards, but had waited a year (!)
|or more, I probably would have snapped right there and killed her where she
|stood.

Whether this is literal or not, you and I don't know; we'd have to
ask Mr. Steeves how he meant it.  If it is literal, and it says
Mr. Steeves is a "walking time bomb," then it is probably better
to correct the system that pushed him into that position and to 
provide some avenue of help for him (eg. therapy) than to resort 
to such intelligent repartee as insulting him personally.

Don Beaver
-- 
beaver@cs.psu.edu                       Opinions from the PC-challenged
Newsgroups: talk.abortion