From: nyikos@math.scarolina.edu (Peter Nyikos)
Newsgroups: talk.abortion
Subject: Re: I had an abortion two days ago
Date: 8 Oct 92 17:45:35 GMT
Organization: USC  Department of Computer Science

In <1992Oct1.180147.14031@netcom.com> bskendig@netcom.com (Brian Kendig) writes:

>c164-ad@po.berkeley.edu (Martin Guerrero) wrote (in article <1992Oct1.070033.29228@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU>):
>>The right to life is the most basic and fundamental right we have.  Without
>>a right to life, we cannot claim any other rights (possibly because we'd
>>be dead?)

>There are two weaknesses to your argument.

>One is that your 'right' to life can be waived by other people.

No weakness there.  I think even Martin would make a threat-to-the-life-
of-the-mother exception, and I would make a lot more exceptions.

>The other is that you're completely neglecting to consider the woman
>involved. 		  ^^^^^^^^^^

Come off it, Brian!  are you blind, or are you such a toady of Adrienne
that you cannot bear to disagree with her?

> I've posted a list of some situations in which I feel a
>woman would have a very good reason not to have a child she doesn't
>want (she was raped, or she needs to take medication that could
>severely damage the fetus, or she would be required to quit her job
>and go onto welfare, and so on).

I can't speak for Martin, but it is precisely for such reasons that
I would keep abortion legal for the first 5 weeks.  

Can you give an instance where a woman NEEDS, in the sense of severe
physical impairment resulting from ANY other remedy, to take a medi-
cation that would SEVERELY damage the fetus, and I don't mean even
the kind of damage that "thalidomide babies" endured, since some of
them have grown up to be quite happy and productive citizens of their
respective countries, and I have never heard of one saying he/she
wished he/she had never been born.

>  If you solve the abortion problem by
>flatly outlawing it, then women will use sympathetic doctors or
>coat-hangars, worsening the problem.

No.  Sympathetic doctors are a big improvement on unsympathetic legal
abortionists, like several right here in Columbia.  As for 
coathangers, see the chapter "Specious Arguments in Favor of Abortion,"
in _Aborting America_.

>  If you pass legislation that
>will only allow abortions in some cases but not others, then women
>will struggle to slip through the loophole in that law, and women with
>a legitimate reason for needing an abortion will be hindered by it.

The hindering will not be a major problem if the reason really is
legitimate.  As to loopholes, sure, some will slip through, but there
would still be a major reduction in the number of abortions if the
loopholes are at all intelligently designed.  Or don't you give a 
damn about reducing the number of abortions, Brian?

>How do you propose to solve this problem?  More to the point, why is
>it up to _you_ to 'solve' it?

We're all in on this together.  Martin is just pitching in and doing
his share, and so far what he has written makes a lot more sense than
what you have written.

Peter Nyikos
Newsgroups: talk.abortion,talk.politics.misc,alt.sex,alt.rush-limbaugh,alt.politics.elections,alt.politics.clinton,alt.politics.bush