From: bense@oasys.dt.navy.mil (Ron Bense)
Newsgroups: talk.abortion
Subject: Rational Discussion (Re: In defense of the supposedly indefensible)
Date: 8 Oct 92 12:15:49 GMT
Reply-To: bense@oasys.dt.navy.mil (Ronald Bense)
Distribution: na
Organization: Carderock Division, NSWC, Bethesda, MD

In talk.abortion, lebow@psl.nrl.navy.mil writes:

Paul, at this point, I suggest you archive all posts, as will I, as
there will be large deletions of material that may be referenced in
the responses. The reason for this is to cut out large amounts of repititious
material, and to prevent the generation of those incredibly ponderous
posts that take half a day to read and locate the three or four valid
points to respond to. I'll have them archived also, so if you miss one,
I can mail you the archive. So far this seems to be a rather intellectual
discussion, so I'll attempt to keep it that way and leave out the flames.
(Note many dropping this thread now:)

>Ron  - I have incorrectly tried to argue that assigning "value"  to a  fetus is

Noted.

>"morality" we are calling upon is the same, namely "though shall not kill".
>The issue is, does that apply to a fetus - you say no, I say yes.

I see where you are coming from, but my stance is sort of defined by
you shall not subjugate another against their will. This is more directly
to the point of my view as it applies to this issue. But we can argue
it from both sides. (Note here that this only applies to law-abiding
citizens, and not criminals who've attmepted to subject others to their
will or hurt others in some way. That's a different topic.)

>1) Even though I have not yet done so, I feel it can be shown that the baby and
>fetus are ONE IN THE SAME.  I think this can be done using reasoning that is
>both  scientifically sound and based on common sense.  So it is not that I am
>trying to apply the same value to "A" and "B", rather, "A" IS  "B".

There is a fluid area in time wherein they are alike, although there
is a major difference in physical attributes, such as one lives inside
another off of that other's body while a baby lives independently (Not
self-sufficient or anything, mind you, but in comparison to a fetus.)

>2) You have already shown some ambiguity in that you both accept a pregnant
>woman's desire to save a premature infant as well as a different pregnant
>womans desire for a late term abortion for any reason (despite its rarity).

How is this ambiguent wrt my postion? My position is to support the
woman's choice to not be pregnant.

>The fetus can take on two vastly different "states"  soley based upon the
>mother's attitude.  In one case the doctor and society bring to bear all the
>life saving actions at their disposal, in the other the fetus winds up in the
>trash.  This position is in some respects consistant but it throws away all of
>the other pro-choice arguments, ( fetus not a person, fetus a parasite, fetus
>can't feel  or display nerve activity, etc) since they are irrelavent.  Your
>view, I think, is that the ONLY criterion is that of the pregnant woman.

These are not my arguments. They are the counter-arguments raised against
the arguments made by anti-abortion people who wish to show that the
fetus is indeed a person. So far this has failed because of those counter-
arguments. That does not mean that these counter-arguments are arguments
for abortion. Your conclusion is correct.

>Just the opposite!  The penalty for a mistake in one direction is the loss of a
>life. This does not apply to erring on the woman's side (assuming pregnancy 
>is not life threatening to the mother)

We need to sort out a few other things here. In general (IOW, not relating
solely to humans) life is not valued highly in and of itself. I can
probably safely assume that you value life no more than I, in that you
eat meat, eat plants, kill pests, and kill weeds. All of these actions
kill life, and I assume you sleep no worse for endorsing it. Now to
go towards human life (but not human, as in human being), you probably
don't have any qualms about removing moles, tumors, and teeth. All involve
killing of human life. Up to this point, I don't think we have a problem.
So I can safely say that you could endorse the killing of human cells,
as you don't assign value to a single cell. 

So now comes the really tough part. Why is one cell more important than
an other? Why is a skin cell not as important, as say, a heart cell?
A brain cell? a nerve cell? A fertilized egg?

What? You claim the fertilized egg can become a human? So can any other
cell. You've heard of cloning, I presume, and that is exactly what occurs,
or will you argue that the human being that results from cloning is
less than a human being that results from a fertilized egg? They have
every reason to think they can clone people, as they've cloned higher
mammals, but ethics have so far stopped any serious research into this
area.) So now that the two can be equated, how about after the zygote
divides? It's only two cells now, and there is no real difference between
those and the single cell. You can extrapolate this for a while, but
eventually you come up against a period in development when the cellsbegin
specializing. They differentiate from one another, and are now beginning
to conglomerate into an entity. What are they now? Are they any different
than any of that other life we've looked at and summarily proven as
unworthy of too much concern? Well, other than its basic genetic structure,
I see no difference, as there is nothing there to differentiate it from
those other life forms. We are now in the embryonic stage.

We can continue this argument all the way through birth, and even after
wards, until such a time as distinguishing  characteristics develop
to separate this entity from the mass of life that we really don't care
about. At this time I would endow it with some of the characteristics
of personhood, and at this time should consideration be given towards
it in relation to those of a known person. To give consideration to
it prior to this time, over the wishes of the mother, is to elevate
any other particular life (general) over the wishes of a single person.

>definition of a non-human.  Even if I could find a dozen such  "persons" it
>wouldn't prove MY side either.

No, but it would refute my point if you could even point out a single
one.

>If you are "connoting" a religious based position, you are wrong in my case as
>well as many others I know.

I was. I don't really know any pro-lifers, with the exception of you
possibly, that don't have their beliefs ultimately based on what their
religion tells them. If so, I'd be interested in hearing those reasons.

Ron                          Think about this one (seen on a bumper sticker):
			     The road to hell is bumper-to-bumper
			     Make a U-turn to God.
The irony is priceless.
Newsgroups: talk.abortion