From: kevin@rotag.mi.org (Kevin Darcy)
Subject: Re: Jim, the chastity belt theory, and me, Part 1
Organization: Who, me???
Date: Sun, 22 Nov 1992 00:28:29 GMT

In article <32847@rnd.GBA.NYU.EDU> smezias@rnd.GBA.NYU.EDU (Stephen J. Mezias) writes:
>In article <1992Nov17.215527.23123@panix.com> jk@panix.com (Jim Kalb)
>writes in response to my complaint about the special burden that
>forced pregnancy laws place on women:
>
>>People should be responsible for their sexual activity, as they are
>>for their other activity.  That responsibility includes the
>>responsibility to foster and support rather than destroy the life that
>>results from sexual activity.  It is true that prohibition of abortion
>>puts a special burden on women; however, since that burden results
>>from the application of the same principle (responsibility for one's
>>actions) to persons in different circumstances (persons who can and
>>persons who can not become pregnant) I see no reason to view the
>>special burden as unjust.  Nor have you suggested a reason.
>
>I cannot believe that you can make the last statement with a straight
>face.  Scarce state resources should not be devoted to regulating the
>use of one's body; a particularly injust use of these regulations are
>laws on bodily autonomy that have a differential impact with regard to
>demographic variables.  
>
>>You seem to object to the view that one's obligations depend in part
>>on one's circumstances.  I don't understand the objection.
>
>If your forced pregnancy position had an effect that corresponded only
>with behavior, then I would support it.  However, it is quite possible
>to engage in the behavior that you want to regulate, i.e. `hold people
>responsible for' using state resources, and suffer very different
>consequences, not based on behavior but based on gender.  Your
>position is that sex --> consequences for both genders.  However, this
>equivalence does not stand up to scrutiny:
>
>                                       Women: Financial support. 
>                                      / Enforced bodily support.
>                        Consequences
>Sex -->  pregnancy -->  of Forced Birth 
>                        Policy       
>                                       \
>                                        Men: Financial support.
>
>So despite your claim that the law is aimed at behavior, we see that
>consequence of the law is to impose the burden of financial support on
>both genders.  Unfortunately, the burden of bodily support can be
>traced uniquely to the gender: Both men and women must have sex in
>order for a /z/e/f/ to be formed.  However, the punishment you would
>prescribe for this behavior is grossly unequal.  Among the
>consequences that would fall uniquely on women are the following: (1)
>diminished earnings power, including lost work time and damage to
>workforce progression, (2) higher mortality than early term abortion,
>(3) enhanced risks of serious health damage, and (4) psychological
>trauma of being forced to have your body occupied by an entity that
>you do not wish to have there.  You may claim that you really are
>gender neutral despite these obvious differences in effect of the law
>you advocate.  In this face of this discriminatory effect, I find the
>behavior of supporting such laws as a pretty serious threat to equal
>treatment under the law.  

I find this a particularly non-fruitful line of argument. The most you
can hope for, Stephen, is to convince Jim that men should chip in enough
EXTRA support after the fact to compensate women fairly for the consequences 
of their pregnancies. A few dozen $K, perhaps, spread out over 18+ years.

Why should this necessarily have any effect on his pro-life stance?

								- Kevin
Xref: sparky talk.abortion:48927 talk.religion.misc:21712 alt.atheism:21780