From: Larry Margolis <margoli@watson.ibm.com>
Subject: Re: Another good reason not to vote for Bush
Date: Mon, 17 Aug 1992 16:06:54 GMT
Reply-To: margoli@watson.ibm.com
Disclaimer: This posting represents the poster's views, not necessarily those of IBM
Organization: The Village Waterbed

In  <Bt4978.4uo@news.cso.uiuc.edu>  tbuckley@s.psych.uiuc.edu (Tim Buckley) writes:
> In article <1992Aug16.223221.32852@watson.ibm.com> margoli@watson.IBM.com writes
> >
> >> I think that my example is more in line with the mother/child
> >> relationship we are talking about.
> >
> >Are there any cases in which a person can be charged for refusing to
> >provide bodily resources (e.g., blood, bone marrow, organs) to another?
> >Even if it's a parent/child relationship?
>
> Not that I know of.  But I'm not sure that this is germane to the
> discussion.

I think it's quite germane.  If, as has been pointed out in a previous post,
a parent can not be forced to donate bodily resources to a child even if
necessary to save the child's life, then how can you possibly justify
forcing the woman to do this for a fetus?  *Even if you believe that the
fetus is a person*, you're suggesting removing rights from the woman in
order to give the fetus *more* rights than a (born) person has.

> >If the woman decides to withold her bodily resources, and has the fetus
> >detached before viability, so its death is inevitable, but does *not*
> >have the fetus killed (i.e., it's allowed to expire on its own), would
> >you then have no objection to this type of abortion?
>
> Again this depends on what assumptions one is willing to make.  If one
> assumes that life begins at conception then one would necessarily argue
> that this is objectionable.  If one argues from the standpoint of
> viability then when viability is achieved one would find this
> objectionable.  If one argues than only at birth does one become human
> then one would argue that this is never objectionable.

My question was in response to your statement:
> > >> However, abortion is not witholding assistance but the destruction of
> > >> the fetus.  I don't know how the mother could withold assistance unless
> > >> she were to starve herself or something similar.  Am I missing
> > >> something?

I was just trying to determine whether your objection is really to the
active destruction of the fetus, or whether you want to *force* the
woman to contribute bodily resources in order to keep the fetus alive.

Note that I'm not claiming that abortion is *not* objectionable.  Just that
I find enslaving women a hell of a lot *more* objectionable.  *Even if the
fetus were a person*, I would not want to force the woman (who is
*unquestionably* a person) to continue a pregnancy against her will.

In  <1992Aug16.232004.7374@news.columbia.edu>  egl1@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu
(Elizabeth G. Levy) writes:
> "...'To compel the defendant to submit to an intrusion of
> his body would change every concept and principle upon which our
> society is founded,' the judge wrote in one such decision.  'To do so,
> would defeate the sanctity of the individual.'"

I guess some people think it's OK if it's "her body" rather than "his"...

> Larry, on a personal note I must say that after tonight I won't continue
> this discussion.  I will explain why in a separate post.  Please don't
> take it personally.  Thanks.

Well, I hope I've given you food for thought...

Larry Margolis, MARGOLI@YKTVMV (Bitnet), margoli@watson.IBM.com (Internet)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc,alt.activism,misc.headlines,sci.econ