From: parker@ehsn21.cen.uiuc.edu (Robert S. Parker)
Subject: Re: Pro-choicers must condone infanticide 
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 1992 19:50:59 GMT

dsholtsi@csl36h.csl.ncsu.edu (Doug Holtsinger) writes:

>Pro-choicers will often argue that even if the child is 
>considered to be a person, the woman should still have the 
>right to separate herself from the child, and that this 
>right stems from the so-called "right to bodily autonomy",
>or the "right to bodily privacy".

>This right of separation does not lead to an unrestricted 
>right to abortion, since most abortion procedures directly
>violate the child's "right to bodily autonomy".

You are presuming you understand what they mean by "bodily autonomy".

>                                                 In their
>defense, pro-choicers will argue that the woman should have 
>a right of separation which guarantees that all associated 
>risks of the abortion should be carried by the child, and 
>not by the woman.

>But since both parties are assumed to be "persons", with 
>presumably an equal right to bodily autonomy,

Mistake #2, you are considering only two scenarios:
The unborn is the same as a full adult "person".
The unborn is positively not a person.

You ignore the fact that while the unborn *may* be a person, it is probably
not, and even if it is, it is certainly less than a full adult "person".
No one need prove conclusively that the unborn are not "people" for the
unborn to have lesser "rights".  (Pro-separation is not my position, however.)

>                                              it would appear
>difficult to justify this particular assignment of risk. 
>One could justify it on the grounds that the child will die
>anyways after separation, but this rationale would also 
>justify intentional homicide in situations where a person 
>can choose between leaving someone to die, or helping them 
>to live.

Is there actually a law about that?

>Alternatively, pro-choicers might say that the woman should 
>not bear any risks during the abortion procedure since her
>bodily resources are being used by the child, and the child
>is endangering the woman's health.  But this argument could
>also be used to justify "aborting" the woman when the child's
>health and life are threatened by the woman's ingestion of
>drugs and alcohol.

Hey, that's not a bad idea!  If you could pull it off without harming the
unborn child...  It is certainly a threat to the health of the child, which
could be born quite deformed.

>Clearly, pro-choicers who support unrestricted abortion-on-
>demand must argue that the child should not be considered
>as a person.

Well, actually, many pro-choice philosophies don't require that explicitly.
I do happen to disagree with the ones that *do* ignore the issue, because
IMO, if the unborn is a "person" *then* it would have every right not to be
killed.  Of course, there is more to "person" than "living human being", and
the unborn just don't statisfy it, in my definition of "person".

>              This position implies that newborn infants 
>are not persons, since there is no difference between a 
>late-term fetus and an infant,

Mistake #3 (or did I not count one?), this is actually incorrect.  Prior to
birth, the unborn is in a very simple, stable, non-threatening environment
(no abortion doctors around, since it will be born in this situation).  With
such a safe, boring environment there is nothing to promote experimentation
and learning.  However, birth is rather traumatic and the child is thrust
into a cold, bright, noisy world with a lot of things to pose a threat to it
and to give it an environment to start to learn in.  It can now interact with
a complex environment and start to record meaningful memories.  Its contact
with its mother and father can start to shape its future personality.  This
is not possible before birth as everything is inaccessible; no experimentation
is possible.

There *is* a difference between a fetus (mother not yet in labor) and a
newborn infant.

>                               and hence these pro-choicers 
>must condone infanticide.

I have explained at least twice why infanticide does not follow as "moral"
*EVEN IF* the newborn can not be a "person".  If you haven't read it before,
I'm sure you aren't going to read it now, so just do us all a favor and stop
trying to assert things about others' positions that you don't understand.

>Doug Holtsinger

-Rob
Newsgroups: talk.abortion