From: regard@hpsdde.sdd.hp.com (Adrienne Regard)
Subject: Re: pro-choice == pro-(womens' only) choice?
Organization: Hewlett-Packard, San Diego Division
Date: Mon, 06 Apr 1992 20:43:27 GMT

In article <1992Apr6.185715.4692@spool.cs.wisc.edu> rawdon@cabrales.cs.wisc.edu writes:
>In <1992Apr06.160847.22990@sdd.hp.com> regard@hpsdde.sdd.hp.com (Adrienne Regard) writes:
>All of which completely and totally misses the point.  This is EXACTLY the
>same as saying "Women have a responsibility not to do those things that our
>society has determined that they have a responsibility not to do."  Such
>a list may very well include abortion in the near future.

Not really.  What I'm pointing out that people tend to gloss right over
is that our existing social structure is in fact a STRUCTURE, with a whole
mess of intertwining links.  And a whole mess of costs associated with them.
To reduce this to "if women have choice why don't men?" is not only simplis-
tic, but it also defeats the point of *any* rational argument because it
isn't addressing what's *really* going on within the structure.  The basis
of the rights and responsibilties loaded upon the two parties, male and female
in an unwanted pregnancy come from two completely different areas.  They
aren't similar in a whole mess of ways.  To compare them is to go completely
non-linear.

>We're not (well, some of us aren't) discussing what IS here; we're discussing
>what we think SHOULD BE.

That's all very well and good, but if you want to actually *do* something
about it, don't you think it's a good idea to understand what is going on
NOW, so you can be effective about CHANGING it?  Changing what *is* has
ramifications that you would need to handle or justify in your change 
scenario in order to talk anybody into accepting it.  Just saying what you
want, without covering the ramifications, garners you an argument that won't
get much support.

>My interpretation of your statements above is that responsibility is
>something which is forced upon a person against his will.  Yes?  No?

Responsibility is frequently forced upon people against their wills.
I generally categorize this as a 'bad thing', but it sort of depends
upon what the alternatives are.  I'd rather my kid got a blister on
their finger to understand what fire is than to have a house burn down
around them as an example.  I don't think anybody ought to be out there
makin' babies when they are too damned immature to even be thinking of 
such things, but our brains aren't (perhaps unfortunately) located in our
gonads, and so it happens -- too often.

What we do then gets us involved in a whole mess of social structures
that, frankly, in my *personal* experience, I would rather on occasion
do without.  But one cannot always have it that way.

When one wishes to CHANGE a state, I generally consider it a good idea
to understand the state one wishes to change, and the ramifications of
change upon that state, and it's associated links.  Your mileage may
vary.

I'm not currently reading soc.men or soc.women, so I dis-included them
from the followups.  This line of argument started in talk.abortion, so
I'm limiting my comments to that forum.

Adrienne Regard