From: nyikos@math.scarolina.edu (Peter Nyikos)
Subject: O'Dwyer and me on the Irish rape/suicide/abortion case, Reply 1
Summary: Reply to an earlier posting of Frank O'Dwyer
Keywords: implication, inference, rape, suicide
Organization: USC  Department of Computer Science
Date: 19 Nov 92 17:56:16 GMT

Frank O'Dwyer and I have had a lively e-mail discussion in connection
with a follow-up he made to me.  Here is my reply to that follow-up, 
with a few modifications that I have made, some in the light of subsequent
e-mail exchanges with him.

Readers expecting a slugfest based on a recent follow-up of mine with
lots of Hmmmms in it may be initially disappointed, but the issues are
serious enough so that they should provide the missing excitement.

To speed things up a bit, I will be posting my "Reply 2" in this series
separately at the beginning of next week [it is now Thursday], 
without waiting for Frank's reply to this "Reply 1" post to show up
on my boards.

Here we go:

From nyikos Wed Nov 11 09:19:25 1992
Subject: Re: What REALLY pisses me off about Fundies
To: Frank.ODwyer@ap.mchp.sni.de (Frank O'Dwyer)
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 92 9:17:13 EST
Cc: nyikos (Peter Nyikos), forgach@noao.edu
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11]
Status: OR
 
> Mr Nyikos was kind enough to email me a copy of the article to which I am
> responding, as my newsserver is out of action at the moment (again!).  

[Update added Nov. 19: when last I heard from Frank, the newsserver was 
back in action.]
 
> I wish to respond in order to correct some misapprehensions which may arise
> from Nyikos' article, which makes incorrect implications about my own view,
> and about the facts of the Irish 'X' case.

You are making inferences.  No implications of the sort you describe below
were intended.

[Added Nov. 19: Frank explained that he did not want to suggest that I had
deliberately implied the incorrect implications.]

Look at the post as a whole.  The person whose question I was answering
wanted to know how one can make exceptions in the case of some rapes and
not others.  Rather than give a dry response, distinguishing between 
statutory rape and assault rape, I decided to spice it up with some 
data that might set some people thinking.
 
> In talk.abortion nyikos@milo.math.scarolina.edu (Peter Nyikos) writes:
> #In <1992Nov4.144046.11130@netcom.com> bskendig@netcom.com (Brian Kendig) writes:
> #>And as for rape: "possibly"?  Please explain.

> #Good question.  I've been quizzing Frank ODwyer about the famous Irish
> #Supreme Court case, and he cannot rule out the possibility that the
> #"rape" involved was STATUTORY rape, the child being simply underage.
> 
> THE FACTS OF 'X' ARE NOT AS IMPLIED ABOVE:
> 
> 1) The decision in the 'X' case depends in no, way, shape or form on the fact
> that the girl was raped.

Except indirectly, to give a plausible reason why this particular pregnant
girl might be suicidal.

> 2) There is NO exception in the Irish constitution which allows a woman to
> obtain an abortion if she was raped, nor is it planned to introduce such an
> exception, and nor does the Irish Supreme Court decision set any precedent in
> this respect.

Fine, but it sets a damn big precedent as to threat to the life of the
woman/girl owing to alleged suicidal tendencies.  The rape bugaboo is 
designed to lend plausibility to these allegations.

> 3) The Irish Supreme Court decision DOES set a precedent whereby abortion is
> legal if there is a threat to the life of the mother from SUICIDE.  The
> current set of proposed amendments to the constitution is designed to reverse
> the court's decision "in this respect, and no other".

And more power to them, because this particular slippery slope is awfully
steep:  life -> suicide -> rape -> therapeautic [for mental and physical
reasons] abortion -> Roe v. Wade.  A simplified view of
British/American history, but with a hell of a lot of truth to it.

> The amendments are likely to be passed.  If the amendment on the so-called
> "substantive issue" is not passed, then the Goverment will legislate on the
> basis of the court's decision, and abortion will be legal in cases where the
> mother is suicidal as result of her pregnancy.  Neither the legislation nor
> the proposed amendments have anything to do with rape.

You are naive, IMO.
BTW what IS the "substantive issue"?

> Also, whether or not the amendments are passed, and no matter what kind of
> abortion is ever legalised in Ireland, Irish women will continue to go to
> England for abortions, as they always have. 

I have no big problem with that.  4,000 per year is still a far cry from what
will happen if the floodgates are opened in Ireland.
 
> MY VIEW IS NOT AS IMPLIED ABOVE:
> 
> In an email exchange, Mr. Nyikos raised the possibility that 'X' was not in
> fact raped.  I said that as she was 14, she was _certainly_ a victim of
> statutory rape.  I also said that I personally had no doubt that she was
> raped in the same sense as an adult woman (or man) can be raped.

Hey, I said you couldn't _rule_out_the_possibility_ that your "personal
doubt", as you now put it, corresponds to what actually happened.  What
more do you want?

[Note added November 19: to this date, Frank has no evidence that anyone
has been charged, much less arrested, much less indicted, much less
convicted of rape.  Of course, confidentiality of the underage
girl is an important issue, but the public could at least have been 
informed by now whether the rape was assault rape or consensual sex, 
termed (statutory) rape purely and simply because the girl was underage.]
 
> And one is forced to wonder: why does Mr. Nyikos find this possibility
> relevant?  The girl could have been raped, and probably was.  Even if she
> wasn't, this should not be any obstacle to her obtaining an abortion.  Mr
> Nyikos _appears_ to be arguing that not only should certain abortions be
> illegal, but that rape should not be a valid exception.  How on earth can
> this proposal be taken seriously by any reasonable person?

I've been consistent about not wanting abortion penalized up
to the end of the 5th week, whether for rape or any other reason (or no
reason).

[impassioned irrelevant-to-my-post plea deleted]

> During the debate on Maastricht (which in Ireland revolved in large part
> around the abortion issue) at least one pro-lifer (it wasn't Peter Nyikos
> :-)) went from door to door and insinuated that 'X' was "not raped at all",
> and was in fact "going out with some Arab".  This last peculiar racist
> statement coming from a woman, and being aimed at women, makes me despair.
						    ^^^^^
[Note added Nov. 19: I wonder why the plural is used here.]

Specificity to lend credence. 

As long as what was being said was true, 
what's your complaint?  If it had instead been said that she was going 
out with a Britisher, would that be a "peculiar chauvinist statement"?
[Now, in Northern Ireland, that would be defamatory and inviting to a 
lynching, no?  _That_ I would despair over, but not this "racism".]

Please note, all in the above paragraph is conditional.  I have no info
one way or the other whether the implications in the above paragraph
are closer to the truth, or the implications in your paragraph below are:

> The 'X' case is sometimes referred to as "Attorney General vs. X", which can
> be translated as "Irish state vs. raped, pregnant, humiliated, traumatised
> and frightened young girl".  Why does an image of a butterfly being broken on
> a wheel come to mind?

Why does the image of a hook, line, and sinker come to my mind? :-)
 
{Note added Nov. 19 for those not familiar with English colloquial usage:
to gullibly accept someone's word for something is to "swallow it hook,
line, and sinker."}

Peter
 
Newsgroups: talk.abortion,talk.religion.misc,alt.atheism,sci.skeptic