From: Larry Margolis <margoli@watson.ibm.com>
Subject: Re: Observations
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 1992 15:55:58 GMT
Distribution: usa
Reply-To: margoli@watson.IBM.com
Disclaimer: This posting represents the poster's views, not necessarily those of IBM
Organization: The Village Waterbed

In  <1992Sep10.032626.12273@advtech.uswest.com>  stevens@eatdust (John Stevens) writes:
> In article <1992Sep04.115231.9627@watson.ibm.com> margoli@watson.IBM.com writes:
> >In  <1992Sep4.000858.12970@advtech.uswest.com>  stevens@eatdust (John Stevens)
> >> In article <1992Sep3.001708.22093@rigel.econ.uga.edu> mills@uga.edu (Kathi Mi
> >> Yup.  And men must bear the pain, sickness, serious health risks and death
> >> inherent in fighting a war.  Something that women are not required (in
> >> fact, allowed) to do.
> >
> >And I say that the way to make that equal is by allowing women in combat.
> >You're saying the equivalent of, since it's not fair, every time a man is
> >killed in combat, take a woman and shoot her.
>
> Did you strain something, stretching that far?

No stretch at all.  You see something inequitable, and choose to try to
do something that many consider horribly wrong in order to make the
situation more fair.  You would make it worse for the women rather than
making it better for the men.

> >It might be more fair, but it's not *right*.
>
> And I never said anything of the sort.  YOU DID, not me.

You would make it worse for women by forcing them to go through an
unwanted pregnancy, rather than make it better for men by making it
possible for the couple to agree (before engaging in intercourse) that
the man would not be liable for child support should they conceive and the
woman elect not to abort.

Making it worse for women might make the situation more fair than it
currently is, but it's not *right*.

> >You can take part, but you don't get the deciding vote, since it's not your
> >body that's affected.
>
> Using that logic, the woman should not have the deciding vote, as the
> babies body and life is MUCH more affected than the womans.

"If any other interested parties have anything to say, let them speak
now or forever hold their tongue."  :-)

> >> Wrong.  Dead wrong.  Almost everybody who responds to me wants to deny me
> >> ANY control of the process.  I'm supposed to sit idly by and let the
> >> woman do anything she wants to my child.
> >
> >You can have a say, but we deny you control over the woman's body.
>
> I don't want control over her body, I want control over what she does to
> my baby.

And if she wants the fetus out of her body, you want to be able to force
her to not remove it.

> >And that's what it comes down to.  You want the power to force the woman
> >to do what you want; you want to be able to control her.
>
> Wrong.  Yet again.  I do not advocate that the man be in control, or the
> woman.  I advocate EQUAL rights, which means that your statement that I
> want the power to force the woman to do what I want is dead wrong.
>
> Will you never get this?  I've explained this to you a number of times,
> and you still don't get it.  You repeatedly make statements of belief
> and then ascribe them to me.  It might help if you realized that your
> interpretation of what I say rarely (if ever) matches what I am trying
> to say.

You want to be able to force the woman to do what you want (remain pregnant)
rather than do what she wants (become unpregnant).  This is controlling how
she uses her body.  What am I misinterpreting?

Larry Margolis, MARGOLI@YKTVMV (Bitnet), margoli@watson.IBM.com (Internet)
Newsgroups: talk.abortion