From: ray@netcom.com (Ray Fischer)
Subject: Re: Personhood and interference
Organization: Netcom San Jose
Distribution: usa
Date: Sat, 3 Oct 1992 06:55:18 GMT

egorr@cie.uoregon.edu (Eric Gorr) writes ...
>In article <#w+p++#.ray@netcom.com> ray@netcom.com (Ray Fischer) writes:
>>egorr@hebb.uoregon.edu (Eric Gorr) writes ...
>>>In article <b__pfzr.ray@netcom.com>, ray@netcom.com (Ray Fischer) writes:

>>>As stated, this case is must to general for me to comment on.  Please
>>>fill in more detail about why a certain couple would not want the child.
>>
>>Why?  So you can give your blessing or condemnation from on high?
>
>Nope.  The reason is so that you can see the application of my theories.

The mother must remain on medication to preserve her life.  She gets
pregnant.  The medication will cause deformities in the embryo.

>>Either personhood starts at conception or it doesn't.  How many rules
>>about "interference" and "good interference" and "bad interference" and
>>splitting persons and the like are you going to make trying to shore
>>up this creaky premise?
>
>Person hood starts at conception...I've never changed that in the
>slightest.

And for the many reasons already posted, this is an unworkable
premise; infeasable, legally unsound, and dangerous.  And if you think
that such mundane pragmatics are irrelevent, you haven't been living
in the real world long enough.

>>>You talk about expensive (at the moment) procedures, completly ignoring the
>>>fact that they will always not be so expensive.  As technology advances,
>>>things become cheaper because ways are found to do thing easier....
>>
>>And you are completely ignoring the fact that merely because something
>>gets cheaper, doesn't mean it _ever_ gets cheap.
>
>False.  You are not looking far enough ahead, or far back enough.  
>Remember, specifically, we are talking about medical technology, not
>things like art, etc...

Medical technology?  The same medical technology that has been getting
_more_ expensive rather than cheaper this century?

>>Many couples are infertile because tha man doesn't produce enough healthy
>>sperm, the women has blocked tubes, the women's uterus can't support a
>>fetus, health problems in the mother, etc.
>
>And, what's your point?  I still don't understand what you are getting
>at...

Some couples will never be able to have children.

>>A woman who can not get an abortion is forced to carry the child herself.
>>She cannot surrender the pregnancy to someone else.  Pregnancy is involuntary.
>>People caring for a person in a coma are doing so of their free wills.  They
>>are even getting paid for it.  If any one of them gets tired of doing it,
>>they can just quit.
>>
>>Clear?
>
>Bascially, the problem here is that you are denying the medical advances
>that would eliminate the problem for the women. 
>
>If you feel this kind of response is not valid, please explain.

I'm not going to argue against your fantasies.  If you're going to
rebute any argument by making up some miracle advance in technology,
then I see no point in continuing.  The rest of us live in the _real_
world.

-- 
Ray Fischer                   "Who shall guard the guardians themselves?"
ray@netcom.com                     -- Juvenal
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