From: regard@hpsdde.sdd.hp.com (Adrienne Regard)
Subject: Re: The March in D.C.
Organization: Hewlett-Packard, San Diego Division
Date: Thu, 09 Apr 1992 15:37:22 GMT

In article <92099.172424JKH107@psuvm.psu.edu> Joy Haftel <JKH107@psuvm.psu.edu> writes:
>In article <1992Apr08.185851.8689@sdd.hp.com>, regard@hpsdde.sdd.hp.com
>(Adrienne Regard) says:
>>In article <92099.011358JKH107@psuvm.psu.edu> JKH107@psuvm.psu.edu (Joy
>>Haftel)
>>writes:
>>>But the end result is the same (death) for the fetus or child.
>
>>Well, Joy, this is the basic problem I have in dealing with "potential"
>>lives in this particular argument.
>
>>After all the end result of 80 years of long and happy life is ALSO
>>death.  But I wouldn't therefore go so far as to justify abortion on
>>the basis of "we all die eventually -- it's our potential".
>
>Life is a dying process, yes.  But obviously there is some reason to
>stay alive, or people wouldn't try so hard to do that, and laws wouldn't
>exist to protect people from unprovoked death at the hands of another.
>Therefore, we see it as good to delay death for a long time.

Joy, the life/death dichotomy doesn't get us much of anywhere, that's all
I'm saying.  Sure, I'm alive, and I'm happy to stay that way, thanks (which
I believe has more to do with the conscious impulses in my brain than
anything else.  "lower" animals rely on an instinct they developed that
allowed them to remain alive long enough to breed...the ones without the
instinct were JUST as alive, but their species didn't survive.)

But the 'aliveness' you say "obviously" has a reason behind it also obviously
has some LIMITS behind it, too.

It doesn't seem terribly useful to me to examine the upside without the
downside.

I don't think it's OBVIOUS that it is better to have one cow that lives 10
years than 10 cows that live 1 year.  On a limited planet, with limited
resources, we sometimes make that kind of choice.   I think women are in-
volved in that kind of choice WRT their families every day of their lives.
It's not 'magic' that so many women DON'T get pregnant, after all.  It's
quite often a very *conscious* decision.

"We don't have the resources"
"I can't afford to take the time from work"
"I don't *like* children"

I happen to think these *reasons* are much more valuable than accidents
of nature.

>Now, a fetus is human (our species) and alive, but at such an early
>stage of development that it is invisible and totally dependent on
>another person.

So?

>>The end result of an egg that doesn't meet a sperm is also death.
>An egg is not a full genetic human.

So?

>>The end result of a fertiziled egg that doesn't implant is also death.
>This cannot be helped.

So?

>>The end result of a born child riding in a car without a seatbelt that
>>has a head on collision at 60 MPH is also death.
>This can probably be helped, but for argument's sake it can't.

So?

I'm not being flippant, Joy.  I am asking you what DIFFERENCE it makes
that a fetus has a full compliment of DNA and an egg doesn't, that 
MANY fertilized (therefore "full genetic human")eggs DON'T implant, and
that people die in accidents.

What DIFFERENCE does this make to the woman who happens to have excellent
reasons *not* to be pregnant?   Why do your responses above *mean* anything?
Why should they be considered by women to be important things?

>Neither a young child who dies nor a fetus who dies experience much
>of life or make an impact or contribution to society.  Why is one
>expendable and the other one not?

I'm going to bring about 420 eggs to maturation in my fertile lifetime,
Joy.  And I've only had two children, and it's VERY DOUBTFUL that I will
have any more.  418 potential children did not experience life or make an
impact or contribution to society.  Even if I had had 1 child every single
9 months of my life, STILL 386 eggs would not have exprienced life or made
a contribution to society.  Our human bodies are *made* in such a way that
MOST of our life-giving potential is wasted.

Why is this waste so difficult to reconcile?  It's the system we function
under.  It's how we are made.  It's *reality*.  I think the shoe is on the
other foot -- why are all these hundreds of lives expendable and this 
particular fertilized egg is not?  Why are so many people so dedicated to
forcing a woman to gestate this one particular fertilized egg AGAINST HER
LIVING BREATHING HUMAN  WILL, when there are hundreds of others going
down the drain?

>(I think you'll say it has something to do with the woman who
>carries the fetus in her body.  But let us assume this child would
>be a newborn who requires frequent nursing and constant attention)

Let's not.  I think there is an intensely important difference between
a fetus within a woman's body, and a newborn in any condition.  And that
difference is a woman.  Let us not "conveniently" exclude the woman from
our argument in order to make things "easier".  She is the one who has
to pay for our convenient argument.....

Adrienne Regard