From: HADCRJAM@admin.uh.edu (MILLER, JIMMY A.)
Subject: re: Who is this reference?
Organization: University of Houston Administrative Computing
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 1992 18:48:09 GMT
X-News-Reader: VMS NEWS 1.20

In article <1992Jul22.211417.17188@menudo.uh.edu> HADCRJAM@admin.uh.edu (MILLER, JIMMY A.) writes:
>In <14kenaINNb11@hpsdde.sdd.hp.com> regard@sdd.hp.com writes:

>>> Why?  Why do you feel abortion is wrong, Jim?  Take that paragraph you wrote
>>> about two weeks ago, and insert a why after every sentence.  Then try to answer
>>> them.  That would make more interesting reading.
>>
>>  Hey ho!  The crux of the matter.  I'll leave out the religion, as you're not
>>a believer (that *was* you wasn't it?).  Let's keep it real simple for time.
>>A fetus represents, at the very least, a potential human being.  I feel said
>>potential deserves a shot at life, be it accidental or not.  Destroying that
>>potential is wrong, unless to preserve an actual in reasonably proximate
>>danger.

>(how's that for a disclaimer!  Yuk!)

No need to get so specific--Let's just say it was a bad week in t.a. 8^)

>[lots from Adreinne on the lost potential of eggs and sperm that goes
>[away naturally.]

  Before I start, I found it somewhat amusing you chose to name some of
the eggs in your example.  Meanwhile, many of your compatriots get downright
nasty when someone uses the world "child" or "baby" (God forbid a name) as 
opposed to fetus.  Just an observation.

[Someone more cynical than I might think you were trying to turn the emotional]
[tables on me, but since I know not read anything more into your words than   ]
[what is there, that someone is not me. big 8^)				      ]

>Yet, there are MILLIONS - ooops - BILLIONS of people on this planet.  We
>aren't hurting for magic.

  Come on Adreinne, we can always use a little more magic! 8^)

>I don't see a single solitary reason to bind the real, thinking, breathing
>woman, who is a miracle in her own right, based on my notion of potentiality.

  There's that word, "bind".  Please don't use it.  I'm not binding anyone.
I know you're perfectly aware of this.  I know you don't mean to imply (that
word again) that I would do so.  I know there are others who would--I guess
you're talking to them, but its bloody distracting for me.  I keep having to
remind the rest of t.a where I stand. 

>That's why I oppose abortion restriction, and a part of why I don't think
>abortion is 'bad'.  Abortion is a response to a pregnancy.  There are other
>perfectly valid responses, but there isn't anything wasteful or sinful or
>                                     ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>any-thing-else-ful about abortion itself, any more than about contraception
>^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>or abstinence.  They are all the same thing.
>^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>                ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>Adrienne Regard

[emphasis added by Jim]

  Setting aside the more obvious differences (time, place, method), since IMO
that would be nitpicking--let us drive straight to the idea of potential.
There can be no debating the premise that most human reproductive potential
is lost or never realized (zillions of sperm never even get to try, much less
fertilize anything).  It is a biological fact, and very few seem to mind.

  However, there IS a difference between the potential represented by the 
individual sperm/egg and the two together in fertilization.  No sperm or egg,
alone, can develop into much of anything.  They sit and wait and go away.

  That could be regarded as a waste of bodily resources--from a technical
standpoint it is, as the materials used to create these sperm and eggs could
likely be used elsewhere in the body.  (Not a lot perhaps, but anyway...)
Nature has a tendency to go for overkill in reproduction.

  But then they get together.  Suddenly they are not sperm and egg, separate
and unique, but Something Else.  They are not the same thing.

  We can equate the various forms of contraception with abortion only so far
as that they prevent a baby/fetus/insert-your-favorite-term-here from being 
born.  Before fertilization, there is no magical potential to worry about--
it's pointless to shed a tear for the millions of sperm that don't make the 
journey (and a major reason why I find religious objection to contraceptives
goofy).  

  After, we are no longer discussing preventing something that happens pretty
rarely (from the standpoint of the eggs and sperm) anyhow.  Once implanted, 
its a pretty safe bet that, barring unseen complications or outside interfe-
rence, said sperm/egg combo will emerge in about 9 months as a baby.

  Pardon the freshman biology, all of which I'm sure you already know, but 
it helps me clarify my point.

  Now we head from the realm of mostly fact to mostly opinion (though there is
some opinion in the above, and some fact in what follows).

1.  The sperm and egg, separately, do represent a certain potential, but this
    potential is much farther removed from the actual than the implanted z/e/f.
    Alone, nothing happens.

2.  Abortion is wasteful of a far more likely potential, regardless of whether
    or not other, more removed, potentials are also "wasted".

3.  No sperm/egg alone can be a person.  Only the two together can.  Only the 
    z/e/f can make that development step.

4.  I believe waste is always a bad thing.  Some waste is unavoidable, some
    is not.  Abortion is an avoidable waste, and I regard it as wrong because it
    represents a qualitative waste of potential far and above the quantitative
    loss of sperm and eggs.

5.  Some may regard this as sinful.  I tend to myself, but such an appelation
    only applies to those of the same religious viewpoint.  Otherwise, no
    comment.

  Some may find in this a rationale for women to get pregnant as much as 
possible to reduce the waste of eggs and sperm.  From a viewpoint of pure
efficiency in a reproductive sense, maybe, but let's not get ridiculous.

  In short, contraception and abortion are NOT the same thing, although one may
reasonably argue they have the same net affect.  Of course, if net effect were
all that concerned us, child abandonment and/or infanticide would not be reg-
arded as such a heinous crime (by US culture).

semper fi,

Jammer Jim Miller 
Texas A&M University '89 and '91
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