From: eeb1@ellis.uchicago.edu (e elizabeth bartley)
Subject: Re: Another sentience que
Reply-To: eeb1@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations
Date: Sat, 15 Aug 1992 17:20:41 GMT

In article <1992Aug10.002222.4549@zooid.guild.org>
Will Steeves <goid@zooid.guild.org> writes:
>garvin+@cs.cmu.edu (Susan Garvin) writes...
>SG> In article <1992Jul18.025525.17808@zooid.guild.org>
>SG> Will Steeves <goid@zooid.guild.org> writes:
>SG> #garvin+@cs.cmu.edu (Susan Garvin) writes...

>SG> #SG# I believe Beth Bartley has left for vacation, but I'm familiar
>SG> #SG# enough with her beliefs to feel certain that her support of
>SG> #SG# legal abortion is not based solely on the non-personhood of
>SG> #                                              ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Not solely, no.  Primarily, yes.

>SG> #Might I remind you that until only 100 years ago, men used to be virtually
>SG> #able to rape and beat women with complete impunity, because the murder and
>SG> #assault laws only applied to "persons," and women were not considered
>SG> #persons.

Oh pleeze....  Go buy a clue.  Husbands were allowed to rape and beat
their wives, yes.  It wasn't because women weren't considered persons.
They were allowed to rape their wives because saying, "I do" in a
wedding ceremony was considered permanent and irrevokable (except by
divorce in states which permitted it) consent to sex.  They were
allowed to beat their wives because the interests of the husband and
wife were considered basically identical, and the husband as the head
of the household should be allowed to discipline the other member.
Women were treated as permanent children, not as non-people.  What you
said literally means that a man could walk up to a woman on the street
and beat her and rape her and probably get away with it ... when in
fact a man who raped a woman not his wife would likely be hanged if
her father or brother or husband didn't kill him first.

Oh, and the murder laws did apply when the corpse was female.

>SG> #How ironic that now that women are "persons," they are now demanding the
>SG> #right to do what *men* used to get away with?

Kill a human entity in their body?  I didn't realize men had ever been
faced with that particular problem.  Could you give me quotes and
sources, please?  After your ridiculous botch above, I'm hardly going
to take your word for it.

>SG> #remains that now *women* are the ones using the powerlessness of being
>SG> #"non-persons" to do what only men used to get away with...

Rape and beat their spouses?  Since when?

>SG> Did you read what I said?

>Yes, obviously...

>SG> I was, in the article that you quoted, explaining someone
>SG> else's views.  I said, that she did not base her stand
>SG> solely on the non-personhood of the fetus.  I cannot understand
>SG> why you then decided to discuss the merits of personhood.
>SG> Are your comments meant to be related to the quoted text?

>I realise that you were explaining someone else's views.  I was merely
>commenting on the person's reference to discussing non-personhood as though
>it were a fact.  Or at the very least it seemed as though she had been
>discussing it on that basis.

My definition of "personhood" requires the ability for thought.  It's
a biological fact that zygotes and embryoes and early fetuses lack the
physical capacity for thought.

[ ... ]

>Perhaps, perhaps not.  But, the question is ... what exactly is being
>terminated when the pregnancy is ended?  Certainly, "something" or "someone"
>goes along with the pregnancy as well.  Some people would call it a child,
>others would say foetus, but *something* is destroyed when the pregnancy is
>terminated.  The question for debate is - What exactly *is* destroyed here?

A human organism without a fuctional brain.  That, m'dear, is simply a
medical/biological fact.

--
           Abortions should be safe, legal, early, and rare.
Pro-Choice                 Anti-Roe                      - E. Elizabeth Bartley
Newsgroups: alt.abortion.inequity