From: chaneysa@nextnet.csus.edu (Stephen A Chaney)
Subject: Re: Abortion in historical comparison
Keywords: abortion, slavery, history, atrocity
Organization: California State University Sacramento
Distribution: world 
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 1992 23:47:19 GMT

In article <pizefb7@Unify.Com> sean@Unify.com (Sean P. Curley) writes:
>The following is the basis for an article that I am considering publishing. 
>I would appreciate your opinions of it.  This is a _first draft_, so don't
>flame the English (I have already seen a couple sentences I want to
>change).
>
>It is deisnged to draw in the reader without mentioning abortion (since 
>pro-abortionists are often turned away by the mere mention of anything
>negative about abortion), and then to relate abortion to some atrocities
>of the past.
>
>---------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>The human race throughout history has deceived itself into atrocities by
>accepting an obviously wrong assumption and centering on the benefits of
>the situation given the assumption.  Examples of this are abundant.  They
>include Hitler's control of the people during the World War II era and the
>varying uses of slavery throughout history.
>
>Expanding on this thought, we see today how wrong slavery is and we look
>back on the slavery in the United States with distaste.  The assumption
>back then was that blacks were not human and there fore could be counted
>as property and any treatment of ones own property was legal.  It is some-
>times difficult to understand or even believe that so many people could
>agree to the statement that `blacks are not human'.  This is an absurdity
>in my mind, but nevertheless, it happened.  People centered on the benefits
>of having intelligent, hard working slaves and ignored the wrongness of the
>assumption and the immorality of the situation if the assumption was false.
>People in general must like them<SR> selves and it is quite simple for the
>mind to hide immorality behind the guise of a bad assumption when it can not
>face the wrongness.
>
>People today think they are much better about this type of situation.  We
>believe, at least here in the United States, that all people are created
>equal, regardless of race, color and religion.  We are working to protect
>animals rights and the environment and are generally more conscience of
>mistreatment.  We even tend to think we are more honest with ourselves and
>each other than those in history.
>
>I think the only difference between those in history and us is that we have
>the hindsight to see the wrongness and the bad assumption they made.
>
>Take abortion, a major issue in our society today.  The assumption that allows
>us to eliminate millions of unborn fetuses is that they are not human (sound
>familiar).  We even have a different name for them (fetuses as apposed to
>unborn babies).  There have been instances of babies being aborted and 
>surviving to become healthy productive adults.  I know of babies born during
>the fourth month of pregnancy that have survived with no side effects.  How
>can we not call these unborn babies human?  We can do it because it is too
>difficult to think of the alternative - that we are murdering unborn children
>(humans) for no other reason than "it is inconvenient".  There are a lot of
>people in this world that are inconvenient, but we are not murdering them.
>
>In my mind this is as bad an assumption as saying "blacks are not human" or
>"Jews are an inferior race".  I fully expect that 50 to 100 years from now
>people will look at this period with as much disdain as we look at past times.
>They will have a difficult time understanding how we could allow ourselves to
>kill such helpless human beings.   They will look at people that say "we have
>the right to decide" and ask "How can you have the right to decide to murder 
>someone?".
>
>We need to face up to this situation, recognize that we have been perpetrating
>an atrocious crime against humanity and solve the problem.  Recognizing the
>problem is the first step in any solution.  We must stop hiding from the
>obvious, accept that we made a bad assumption. and stop killing the unborn
>children by the millions.
>
>
>-- 
>=========================================================================
>Sean P. Curley						Unify Corporation
>Engineering Manager					Sacramento, CA.
>=========================================================================
>

Well, Sean, let me introduce myself. 

I am arguably the most hated pro-lifer on USENET. Often referred to in
affectionate terms such as Turd, Interruptus, Inturdgent, Borgie Boy,
and most recently, "your fat black ass," I embarked on a wave of
massive counter-flaming to take a great deal of heat off of pro-lifers
who would otherwise be flamed off of USENET by the same pro-aborts who
flamed Siren, one of their OWN KIND, for being too logical, too kind,
and too peaceloving. (Yes, these pro-aborts are so vicious that not
only will they slam you to death, they will and have slammed
themselves just as badly.) 

To your article, I say bravo. And I add this :



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The history of abortion and its opposition in the Feminist Movement,
Take One: 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Premise 1: The reason abortion was previously illegal was because it was
unsafe for the woman undergoing the procedure.

Premise 2: The March for Women's Lives in 1992 was partially dedicated to
suffragists such as Susan B. Anthony.

Conclusion: There was no pro-life feminism and abortion was not illegal to
protect the life of the fetus. In addition, abortion was not illegal until
just over 100 years ago, in America.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Premise 1 and 2 are linked in that both are falsities, but also the
disproval of these premises are chief exhibits to prove the following
logical point:

Susan B. Anthony and her feminist movement categorically opposed abortion
and did not oppose laws banning abortion. Modern feminism of the declared
"mainstream," does not oppose abortion and opposes laws banning abortion.
They are, in fact, logical opposites of the Suffragist feminism that they
(chiefly the NOW, for instance) continually dedicate their feminist causes
to.
Logically, for the NOW to dedicate itself to Susan B. Anthony, is the same
as David Duke of the KKK, dedicating his causes to Abraham Lincoln, a
fellow Republican a century ago.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


PROOF:

Premise #1 - in the scrutiny of history, it is false, because in 1857, a
committee of doctors was appointed by the American Medical Association
(AMA) to investigate the discovery that human life begins at fertilization.
The 12th Annual meeting AMA, held in Louisville, KY, in 1859, produced a
report concluded that the reasons for abortion included "a widespread
popular ignorance of the true nature of the crime - a belief even among
mothers themselves that the fetus is not alive till after the period of
quickening... and secondly, from the grave defect of our laws as regards
the independent and actual existence of the child before birth, as a living
being."
Their view of abortion: it was "the wanton and murderous destruction of her
child." 
The action they proposed: "And that the Association recommend, by memorial,
to the governors and legislatures of the several states, and to the
President and Congress, a careful examination and revision of the law as it
relates to this crime." - Reference: Report on Criminal Abortion, submitted
by the American Medical Association Committee on Criminal Abortion at the
Twelfth Annual Meeting of the AMA, Louisville KY, May 1859.

On May 3, 1859, the AMA unanimously adopted the resolution prepared by the
Committee which condemned abortion "at every period of gestation, except as
necessary for preserving the life of either mother or child" and encouraged
laws to that effect. In 1866, the Congress of the United States adopted the
Assimilative Crimes Statute (ACS), including some strong laws against
abortion.



Premise #2: Susan B. Anthony was strongly pro-life in everything she said
about the abortion issue.

"I deplore the horrible crime of child murder... we want prevention, not
merely punishment. No matter what the motive, love of ease, or a desire to
save from suffering the unborn innocent, the woman is awfully guilty who
commits the deed... but oh! thrice guilty is he who drove her to the
desperation which impelled her to the crime." - source: The Revolution
4(1): p.4, July 8, 1869

Others concurred:

"When a man steals to satisfy hunger, we may safely conclude that there is
something wrong in society -- so when a woman destroys the life of her
unborn child, it is an evidence that either by education or circumstances,
she has been greatly wronged." - Mattie Brinkerhoff, The Revolution 3(9):
pp. 138-9, September 2, 1869

"Perhaps there will come a time when... an unmarried mother will not be
despised because of her motherhood; when unchastity in men will be placed
on an equality with unchastity in women, and when the right of the unborn
to be born will not be denied or interfered with." - Sarah F. Norton,
Woodhull & Claflin's Weekly, November 19, 1870


Susan B. Anthony did not speak of prevention with the exclusion of
protective laws for the unborn; she spoke of prevention in addition to
said laws. "Prevention, not merely punishment" is logically not
"Prevention, not punishment," as many pro-choicers tend to argue here; it
is "Prevention + punishment is preferable to punishment - prevention" in
the strictest (and admittedly stone-cold) logical sense. If Susan B.
Anthony and other pioneering feminists of her era did not consider the
right of the unborn to continue living, and they opposed abortion laws, you
would have heard as ardent protests against abortion laws then, as you
heard about laws denying women their right to vote.

No such protests existed; in fact, their statements, from this mere
skimming of the issue, spoke more of support for right-to-life laws. Their
beef was, chiefly, that more was not being done - like prevention. 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


SOME HARD QUESTIONS:

1) Didn't Susan B. Anthony have different views about sex than we Americans
do now?

Answer: Those who consider their views on sexuality in general as being
relevant to their view on abortion might consider the logical and ethical
standard they set by claiming that one's views on sex determines how they
value a human life. Indeed, if that were valid reasoning, a rapist is
justified in considering a woman a "non-person." Indeed, logically, her
views on sex are quite irrelevant.


2) Didn't Susan B. Anthony take a different approach of thinking to this
issue when she began seeing women who died by illegal abortions?

Answer: Such claims are unsubstantiated and are merely rumors, until
historical facts may be provided to prove it.


3) Didn't Susan B. Anthony and her feminist movement oppose abortion
because it was dangerous to women procuring abortions?

Answer: That could have been a factor. But as you can read for yourself in
the texts, they stood squarely for the right to life of the unborn child.
Logically, they *DID* oppose abortion because it was unsafe - unsafe for
the human fetus.


4) That was the 19th century. This is an enlightened society, the 20th
century.

Answer: We still stand for the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, much of
which has been around since the late 18th century. We still stand for equal
rights for all races, religions and both genders, even though those ideas
and their achievements began in the 19th century. The further we have
become enlightened, the more members we have recognized and included as
legally recognized members of the human species. That was, until 1973, when
we deleted someone. Discrimination is discrimination if it is racist,
sexist, able-ist, or, in the case of abortion, age-ist.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


CONCLUSION:

The statements listed above, by the feminist movement of the 19th century,
with regards to abortion, were made after the ACS law of 1866. If there had
been opposition to it, they would not be in support of the law, but in
opposition of it. There is no historical evidence of this, but rather,
concrete evidence to the contrary: they wanted more. They wanted
prevention.

You might be able to easily prove that many pro-lifers do not work for
prevention, but no one can logically say that the center of the pro-life
ideology - that abortion fits the description of murder and that a human
fetus deserves the right to live - is in any way contradictory with
mainstream feminism in the 19th century, the feminism that gave us the
right to vote for women and which helped develop child labor laws, among
other things. The feminism that modern equal rightists respect as the
foundation for their cause.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Feminists for Life of America can be largely thanked for having brought
these facts to light. FFL's progressive, pro-woman/anti male-bashing,
logical, non-Religious Right perspective, largely fits what one would call
less Feminist and more Humanist. And they are the most active pro-life
organization in the area of prevention. To find out more about them, write:

                       Feminists for Life of America
                           811 East 47th Street
                          Kansas City,  MO 64110
                              (818) 753-2130

              (Their literature comes on 100% recycled paper)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.abortion.inequity