From: nyikos@math.scarolina.edu (Peter Nyikos)
Subject: Re: Credit where credit is due...
Organization: USC  Department of Computer Science
Date: 30 Sep 92 22:21:20 GMT

In <19ng5cINNe5v@hpsdde.sdd.hp.com> regard@hpsdde.sdd.hp.com (Adrienne Regard) writes:

>In article <z#7nwmr.bskendig@netcom.com> bskendig@netcom.com (Brian Kendig) writes:
>>gjh@galen.med.Virginia.EDU (Galen J. Hekhuis) wrote (in article <1992Sep22.022532.20340@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU>):
>>>You gotta give her credit though.  She can sit and say that if she
>>>were raped the father would be at fault, not the child.
>>Hmm, maybe I've missed something, but has anyone ever said that the
>>child _is_ at fault?

>Hmmm.  I was going to respond to Galen, then decided not to -- cheap shots
>being cheap and all.  But now we have Brian chiming in and I gotta wonder:
> 
>>If she _had_ been raped and was now pregnant and was saying these same
>>things, then I'd have a lot of respect for what she's saying.  But
>>right now...

This is going to boggle a lot of minds (probably not Adrienne's, though)
but I personally know a woman who got pregnant as a result of rape despite
going through the standard protocol [morning-after pill and all]...

[Well, so far the only minds I may have boggled are those of pro-lifers,
but it gets better...]

...Then she had it aborted, and almost as soon as it was over her
overwhelming feeling was, "I've killed my baby."

Up until that point, it was the rapist's "potential baby", then it
became "her baby".

Now I've said some of this in talk.abortion before, but not the last
two paragraphs, because I thought lots of people simply wouldn't believe
the story.  But after hearing the response to this preliminary foray,
I think the response to this will be on the order of "this woman was
REALLY messed up, a LOT more than most rape victims.

But I don't think so.  This is, IMHO, one really together woman whom
I would trust with more responsibility than about 90% of the faculty
members I have come to know.  What I have told you, she said in 
testimony before a subcommittee of State Senators.  

How many rape
victims would have the courage to identify themselves this way?

After all, before giving her testimony, she had to give her name and
address.

>I don't get it.  What is this *respect* for a woman who would bear a 
>child she didn't want and didn't plan, and conceivably cannot raise?
>(I dunno, maybe she can, but certainly at a cost to her other children.

She put another one of her children up for adoption.  Geez, Adrienne,
after 7 years on the net...

[After exiting this, I will post: "Adrienne's appalling attitude toward
the Unborn."]

And I respect that woman a lot more than I respect you at the present
moment.

>I doubt Suzannes resources are infinite.)  What is this great mysterious
>worship of fecundity that has you two in thrall?

>Because women *can*, you admire that they *do*?  As long as it's bearing
>children.  The other things women *can* do somehow doesn't merit the same
>levels of respect or admiration.  Womb envy at it's finest.

Hell, I respect and admire lots of things women have done.  
I've already mentioned
Mary Ellen Rudin and Caryn Navy.  I could mention lots of things that
are not germane to abortion.

I'll mention this though, because it is.  Mary Ellen has four grown
children, one of whom has Down's Syndrome.  Of the four, she is, in
some ways proudest of him.  

Her other three, she said, merely lived up to their potential.  The
Down's Syndrome son, she says, lives beyond his potential.

>So I'll take the cheap shot after all.  I can only turn it down once in a day.

>This mental feat of disassociation is not really materially different than
>any OTHER feats of disassociation Suzanne regularly posts to the net.  She can
>hardly make it from one side of the street to the other, but I find little to
>admire in this inability to connect the dots.

>Hey, I said it was cheap.

How *honest* is the other side of the street part?

>Adrienne Regard