From: mprc@troi.cc.rochester.edu (M. Price)
Newsgroups: talk.abortion
Subject: Re: A mirror for Adrienne Regard's NO OTHER HUMAN...
Keywords: puberty, surrealistic
Date: 27 Aug 92 19:00:02 GMT
Organization: University of Rochester - Rochester, New York

In <nyikos.714855951@milo.math.scarolina.edu> nyikos@math.scarolina.edu (Peter Nyikos) writes:

>In <1992Aug24.201913.15607@galileo.cc.rochester.edu> mprc@troi.cc.rochester.edu (M. Price) writes:

>>In <nyikos.714615572@milo.math.scarolina.edu> nyikos@math.scarolina.edu (Peter Nyikos) writes:

>>>In <1992Aug23.201147.20315@galileo.cc.rochester.edu> mprc@troi.cc.rochester.edu (M. Price) writes:


>>>>     "The Handmaid's Tale" no more perpetuates misogyny than "1984"
>>>>perpetuates totalitarianism.

>It does if it makes people choose to blind themselves to the evils
>perpetrated on women by abortionists today.

     It doesn't. Happy now?

>>     It is the most powerful book I have ever read, and fast becoming
>>canonical ( I know of at least four university instructors who teach it
>>right here).

>For credit? 

(Sarcasm on) No, Peter, for the pure joy of teaching. (Sarcasm off).

 Ask them this: can they give a single example of a woman
>who was prosecuted for having an abortion done on her, in the whole 
>history of America OR England OR Australia OR Canada? 

     Perhaps not, but I can give you examples of women who were
prosecuted for not following doctors' orders during their pregnancies,
for taking prescription drugs, for being involved (as a non-driver) in a
car accident, for having sex, for eating food because it tasted good,
not for its nutritional value--all of these in the land of the free in
the last 20 years. Would you like me to post these?

>Then ask them, how many rape cases, other than marital rape, were ignored
>by law enforcement authorities on the grounds that rape is not a crime?
>(I mean, besides in the days before the 13th amendment, when rape of slaves
>may not have been a crime.)

    Are you looking for precise figures? Difficult to find, I would
guess, but I would also go on to assert
1) that marital rape was not ignored on the basis that rape was not a
crime, but on the basis that marital rape was not considered rape at all
and 
2) that many rapes are ignored even today because they are not
considered rape (she was drunk, wearing revealing clothes, coming on to
him, she really wanted it etc.)

>>>So long as the self-designated "pro-choice" groups do not break their
>>>solidarity with abortionists who have demonstrated a callous indifference
>>>toward the health and welfare of their patients, as in my COERCED ABORTION
>>>post of last month, I reject the label with loathing.

>> So long as the self-designated "Pro-life" groups do not break their
>>solidarity with the terrorists I saw a couple of weeks ago persecuting
>>the two young children of a local doctor, I reject your philosophy with
>>loathing.

>The two situations are not the same.  Before you pass judgment on my
>philosophy you have to tell me what exactly this persecution consisted of,
>and then if I do not break solidarity with these people you call
>terrorists, then your conclusion will be valid.  [I'm not sure, though,
>where the pro-life groups come into this.  I'm pretty sure you already
>reject with loathing the "pro-life" label being pinned on you.]

Are you really pinning a pro-life label on me? How funny!
     
>>>See a comment above.  I don't waste my time on hack writing, and this
>>>comment of yours reinforces my suspicions that the book is just that.
>>>I was being partly ironic in my "trust" comment.

>>     Oh, so now you've judged the book without even reading it! How
>>intelligent and open-minded!

>A suspicion is not a judgment.  Was there ever a pro-life book you did
>not suspect of being bullshit?  {Append a wry smiley here.}

     Probably not, if I knew it was "pro-life." However, I would at
least read it before I criticised it in a public forum.

>>     Huxley's LInda would have had an abortion had she not fallen down a
>>ravine, become concussed and been accidentally abandoned in Malpais
>>before she knew of her pregnancy. She lyrically extols the abortion
>>center to Lenina.

>Did she regret the fact that John had been born?

Yes. Sometimes no, but mostly yes.

>>     Perhaps you would like to quiz me?

>Thanks, it saves me a trip to the library and lots of leafing through the
>book.  One thing I still can't figure out is, why didn't Linda leave
>the reservation until her son John was grown up?  Couldn't she get any
>one of the many groups of tourists to take her away from that awful
>reservation, until Lenina's came along?

     She was afraid to go to the reservation director because of the
shame of having given birth. Tourists don't seem to appear in Malpais
very often (note Linda's tearful response to the sight of Lenina's silk
acetate clothing). Huxley doesn't give any kind of reason, though, why
Lina would have been ashamed to go to the director but not to go with
Lenina and Bernard.

>>     In terms of closeness, check out the final chapter of Susan
>>Faludi's _Backlash_. Perhaps you will notice some examples of real-life
>>American fetal Idolatry, including one very distressing one in which the
>>woman dies partly from the result of intrusive Cesarian surgery to save
>>a stillborn 5 1/2 month fetus expressly against her own wishes. 

>I'll check whether our library has it.  If not, do you mind some more
>quizzing?

For credit? :-)


                                                               MP
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