From: nyikos@math.scarolina.edu (Peter Nyikos)
Newsgroups: talk.abortion
Subject: Re: I had an abortion two days ago
Date: 4 Oct 92 03:29:26 GMT
Organization: USC  Department of Computer Science

In <1a9qv2INN412@hpsdde.sdd.hp.com> regard@hpsdde.sdd.hp.com (Adrienne Regard) writes:


>>>I don't give a damn about 'the unborn',
>>>because I don't think they *have* desires, feelings and wishes.
   ^^^^^^^
[Deletions.  Interesting how there is no break in the chain of
thought:]

>>Yes, you have some compassion.  But your compassion stems from 
>>not caring for the unborn because they do not have any desires, wishes,
>>and feelings. 

>There you go again, speaking for me and getting it wrong.  My beliefs do
>not stem from a lack of caring for the unborn, but from a caring for the
>born. 

Wow, you could have fooled me, Adrienne!  What did your "because"
mean up there????

> Whether my feelings about the unborn are negative, neutral or 
>positive is unimportant compared to my feelings for the BORN, which is
>highly positive and in favor of THEIR desires for themselves.

Right.  So,  how *is* it that the desire of a 
woman not to give birth to a "baby woman" (to use the words of the
Doonesbury girl) because she only wants to give birth to "baby men"
outweigh the right of the "unborn baby woman" to live?

So long as you keep supporting the right of women to an abortion for
any reason up to birth, Adrienne, you can expect me to keep bringing
up this special case which is so unflattering to your ideologically
pure philosophy.

>>Many of your persuasion have passion but I kindly ask you to look and see
>>exactly what the unborn is.  Then we can stop arguing about whether
>>we should abort some of our children to provide "better lives" for
>>our other children, and instead, work hard for providing all our children
>>and having our children be seen as beautiful assets instead of annoying
>>liabilities.  

>Excuse me, "we" haven't been doing this.  Maybe you have gone off down
>that primrose path, but I wouldn't waste my time.  If you have misinter-
>preted my arguments in this manner, may I suggest it might have something
>to do with conveniently rephrasing *my* arguments into your arguments and
>then refuting them?  A circular pastime at best.

Right, Martin, Adrienne never said we *should* abort some of our children,
except that she herself thinks a woman's children SHOULD be aborted if
she wants it that way.  A small nitpicky distinction on which her five
imperious lines depend, and she wonders why I called her the "Lady
High Everything Else" of talk.abortion.

>>>Somehow I don't think that rejecting it 'nonviolently' would meet with your
>>>approval.  Tell me if I'm wrong.  Are you a big supporter of RU-486?
>>Violently and nonviolently have little to do with my stand on abortion.

>Ah.  So this is a smoke screen.

No, Adrienne.  Doing it in a way that makes the unborn suffer IS worse
than trying to avoid the suffering.

>  Even if the mother, poor and unprepared
>for her pregnancy KINDLY, GENTLY and with infinite compassion rejected
>the unborn, you'd have a problem with it.

What's infinitely compassionate about RU-486?  I say it is worse than
negligent homicide.

"Do not go gently into that night.  Rage, rage against the dying of the
light."  --Dylan Thomas

>Wouldn't you have a better time if you just stated your *real* objections
>so we could waste less time here?

We've got lots of them, Adrienne.  All of them real.  How much *have*
you learned from 7 years on the net?

>>But when the origins of allowing abortion are at least partially based
>>on the possibility that the child MIGHT suffer when they might not is saying
>>guilty before a fair trial.  

>Excuse me?  Upon what evidence do you base this curious comment?

I think Martin may have gotten his MIGHT mixed up with his "might not".
His sentence makes LOTS of sense to me this other way around.

>>>Maybe.  Maybe not.  Since *I* don't know, and since *YOU* don't know, I
>>>figure I should keep my nose out of their business.  I also figure you 
>>>should keep your nose out of their business.

>>What exactly do you mean by business?  Do you mean the business of
>>having an abortion, and having a choice between terminating a human life
>>or allowing it life?  

"Mankind was my business"--Jacob Marley in _A Christmas Carol_.

>I mean by keeping our noses out of their bodies.  That's what I mean.
>I don't have any desire to set up family planning sessions for a bunch
>of total strangers, thanks.

How about making us support Elizabeth Calderone-style sex education
in the high schools and school-based "reproductive health" clinics?
Pro-choicers don't seem to have any trouble with this kind of thing.
Are you an exception, Adrienne?

>>>And there are likewise people out there who HAD children who may feel in 
>>>the back of their mind (it may be buried very deeply though) that 
>>>having the baby was a MISTAKE!!!!!  

>>But would the child who was a "mistake" agree?  Maybe yes.  Maybe no.

>See, this is what I find very hard about arguing with people who can't
>stick to the point.  You were talking about *having* the baby.  Now you
>are talking about the baby itself.  

Why should they stick to ONE point?  He saw a chance to make another
point, and he made it.

>Do you or do you not agree that *having* a baby, and a physical baby, are
>in fact two different things?!?!?  Can you please stick to the subject?

Do you still wonder why I called you "Lady High Everything Else?"  A
person can only take so much browbeating without rebelling.

>Nobody's saying the baby is 'bad'.  Nobody is saying the baby deserves
>or doens't deserve (to live/to die).  We *were* talking about the woman,
>and her decisions, before you insisted on changing horses in mid stream.
>And even if the baby is a Nobel Laureate, it could have STILL been the
>wrong decision for the woman to have *that* baby, *then*.

And the right decision would have been to have it killed???  ("We kill
it and remove it...")  Did the unborn baby deserve to die?  Or does
the word DESERVE mean anything to you in the first place, Adrienne?

You see, Adrienne, we pro-lifers want you to see the world from the
inside of the womb, so to speak.  If we have to change horses in
midstream, so be it.  We don't want you spending another 7 years on
the net without at least seeing the reasons for "fetalworship."  

>>A parent may "know what is best' for the children many times, but does
>>the mother (or father?) have the right to terminate a child's life for
>>his/her own good?

>Not at all.  The mother has the right to terminate a fetus's life because
>she doesn't wish to carry it within her body and take the risks that carrying
>and bearing a child entails.

"Take the risks" does not apply to the "unborn baby woman" case above.
Nor does it apply to fetuses who are harvested for their tissue.

Peter Nyikos