Newsgroups: soc.women,soc.men
Subject: Re: Another right to not
From: rivero@mdcbbs.com
Date: 8 Sep 92 10:45:42 GMT
Organization: Electronic Data Systems, Unigraphics Division, Cypress CA
Nntp-Posting-User: rivero

In article <whnnlhd@lynx.unm.edu>, bevans@carina.unm.edu (Mathemagician) writes:
> In article <1992Sep4.095907.1@mdcbbs.com> rivero@mdcbbs.com writes:
>>  I have seen the lab tests which show just how human a foetus really is. 
>>Certainly it can feel and respond to pain. Women who undergo a saline 
>>abortion can feel the foetus struggling and convulsing as it dies.
> 
> Didn't we already go through the rigamorale that claimed an
> non-myelinated nervous system is not a good measure of whether or not
> an organism feels pain?

  Well, an organism with a non-myelinated nervous system was unavailable for
comment.  :)

  Regardless of whether the foetus has a myelinated nervous system or not
(and the failure to detect same might be the limitations of our technology
rather than the actual lack of what we are searching for), it does exhibit
a response to a saline abortion which in comparison to it's size, can be
deemed a violent one.

  Recall a few years ago when the city dog pounds insisted that their vacuum
chambers were a humane way to kill off stray animals? It is now known that
this claim did not proceed from real science, but political necessity, as
anyone who has seen a film of such a chamber at work knows that the animals
pratically clawed each to shreds while asphyxiating.

> 
>>Having actually bothered to check the scientific evidence myself, I am
>>forced to remind my ex that she is NOT God, NOT a doctor (hell she didn't
>>even finish high school) and that therefore her point of view is merely
>>an opinion, and an uneducated one at that.
> 
> First, you're going to have to prove to me that god exists before you
> can claim that a certain person isn't god.

  Well, since I myself am an atheist, that's rather hard. The point was that
she was presuming to make godlike (or if you prefer, Naziesque) decisions
about the humanness of another.


>  The fact that she isn't a
> doctor and didn't finish high school isn't necessarily an indication
> that she doesn't know the biological status of a fetus.

  It indicates that her opinion is unevaluated, as dhe clearly lacks
the tools to verify whether what she reads or sees on television is
accurate or not. She may believe (even accuratly), but she cannot
KNOW, as knowledge requires a factual base, not just a popular
mythos.


>   Ending the life of
> somebody already born is not the same as ending the life of a fetus.

  That is entirely an arbitrary decision. It's like in "Logan's
Run" when everyone over 30 is executed. It's a convenience for the
overall society, set at the "optimum" termination age. Doesn't mean
they really deserve to die, or that they don't feel it. It's
just what's expedient.

  This whole idea that the foetus cannot possibly feel anything is
shaped and promoted through political necessity.  To successfully market
abortion as political empowerment, the actual practitioners must be made
to believe that the victims feel no pain and are not human (not unlike the
deathcamp guards who referred to the bodies as "old rags"). This dehumanization
is so total that we, as a nation, are very concerned with the possible pain
felt by our worst criminals as they are executed, while blithly assuming 
that a foetus cannot feel it's own death.


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|  Michael Rivero rivero@mdcbbs.com  Middle-Aged Mutant Ninja Animator   |
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|                    When 911 won't work,  .357 will!                    |
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