From: conditt@tsd.arlut.utexas.edu (Paul Conditt)
Subject: Re: just passing through on way to alt.real-men.grunt.thud ....
Organization: Applied Research Laboratories, University of Texas at Austin
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 1992 18:01:04 GMT

In article <1992Dec18.163836.13354@nas.nasa.gov> dking@raul.nas.nasa.gov (Dan King) writes:
>Followups set to Talk.abortion
>
>In article <1992Dec17.211922.15114@titan.tsd.arlut.utexas.edu> conditt@tsd.arlut.utexas.edu (Paul Conditt) writes:
> 
>>[Yet another Rant from someone who has no clue about responsibility
>> telling others how to live according to his bizarre idea about
>> responsibility deleted]
> 
>>Believe it or not, we *all* have the right to choose what happens to our
>>bodies.  The thing that we don't seem to be willing to accept is *when*
>>that choice occurs.  The choice occurs *before* you have sex, not during
>>and certainly not after.  If a woman wants to preserve her right to 
>>choose to not have a baby, then she shouldn't engage in activities where
>>there's a possibility of that happening.  Same thing for men.  What is it
>>that makes it so hard to accept this responsibility?
> 
>I just love it when pro-lifers spout off about responsibility as if
>it is something they understand.  Paul, if you want to do the
>responsible thing regarding abortion you should drop your legislative
>agenda now.  That is irresponsible behavior.  If you want to save

Dan, believe it or not, I don't have a legislative agenda.  I'd 
probably align more closely with pro-lifers, but I'm not actively
involved with them because I don't agree with a lot of the tactics used
by them (burning down abortion clinics, forming picket lines, etc).  Now
this is just my opinion, but I believe that we already have a law about
abortion, which is the laws we have on murder.  But, I can't prove that
a fetus is a human under the law, so I won't push that.  I think the 
courts should spend their energy deciding when life begins instead of
either trying to close or open loopholes in existing laws.

>fetus, it is very irresponsible to force someone to care for something
>that you treasure at great personal sacrifice for them and no personal
>sacrifice for yourself.  The responsible thing for you to do is to
>take personal responsibility to protect fetus's.  Help women who are
>dealing with un-wanted pregnancy.  There is a possibility that just
>a place to stay for a while may convince a woman to continue a
>pregnancy.  Take them into your house.  Maybe another woman may
>need a few thousand dollars to survive the time she can't work.
>Give her the money.  Another woman might just need something like
>the parental leave bill passed to convince her to carry to term.
>Right your congress critter to try and over-ride the religious
>rights stooge's veto.  These are just a few of the personal
>sacrifices you yourself can make to eliminate the need for
>abortion.  These would be responsible actions as opposed to
>the irresponsible method of forcing others against their will
>to care for fetus's.  Why don't you try and be responsible.

I agree whole-heartedly with your suggestions on how to protect fetuses.
I see 2 *different* issues here.  One is whether abortion is murder or
not.  That's for the courts to decide.  The other, which although related
to abortion is *not* part of the abortion issue, is the issue of unwanted
children.  I think the answer to the second issue lies mainly outside of
the realm of government.  I don't think we can legislate these things into
existence.  The places the things that you mentioned should occur are in
the churches and volunteer organizations in our local communities.  I know
of at least one church in Corpus Christi, TX that provides a shelter for
crisis pregnancies.

As per your "religious right" comment, I actually agree with you.  I
consider myself a strong Christian, but I daresay that the attitude
portrayed in the media by the "religious right" is actually contrary to
what the Bible teaches.  In the epistle written by James, he says that
if you say to someone be warm and well-fed and then do nothing about it,
your faith is not really faith at all.  I think the church I mentioned in
Corpus is a great example of putting your money where your mouth is.  As
far as my personal involvement, I think I do show a lot of responsibility
by not putting myself in situations where an unwanted pregnancy can 
occur.  I can't force others to do the same except to voice my opinion
and do what I can to provide viable alternatives.  Currently, I'm not
involved in helping with crisis pregnancies because I'm spending my
time helping people with AIDS.  It's not that I don't feel strongly about
helping with crisis pregnancies, but I only have so much time and my
efforts are best spent where they are for right now.

Back to legislative agendas, if there needs to be a major reform in
legislation affecting these issues, it should be in the adoption regulation.
Adoption is a wonderful way to provide otherwise unwanted children with
a good shot at living a full life in a loving and stable environment.
However, in many states, adoption is very difficult and often does not have
the best interests of the child in mind (60 Minutes ran an episode a month
or so ago about inter-racial adoptions that points out a lot of the 
problems).  There are so many families that want to adopt that aren't able
to because of the red tape involved.  I have 2 good friends who aren't able to
have children of their own who have adopted 2 children, one of a different
race than they are.  The sad thing is that they had to wait over a year
and a half for the first one and just over a year for the second.  I am
adopted as are both my brother and sister and we've all had a very stable
and loving upbringing.  So, as you can surmise, I'm very in favor of 
providing places where women in crisis pregnancies can go to have their
babies and put them up for adoption with the assurance that the child
will have a better life that way.

I've said a lot to explain myself, but I feel that your comments were
somewhat of an attack.  You seemed to assume that because I use some of
the same language that radical right-wing fundamentalists use, that I
have adopted their views carte blanc, but this is not so.  Back to the
responsiblity issue, I still think focusing on the fact that our actions
have consequences and teaching this to young people is a good thing to do.
I think ultimately, this will be the only solution to the problem of
unwanted pregnancies.  In focusing on this, I don't mean to ignore the
other, very important issues that go along with it.  But for things to
change, I think there needs to be an attitude change in our society.
A close friend of mine, who has AIDS, does a lot of speaking about it at
local high schools and jr. highs.  She focuses her talk on abstinence as
being the only way to protect yourself.  She was very conscientious about
birth control, but 7 years ago when she got the disease, AIDS wasn't viewed
as a problem.  She says that if she had it to do over again, she'd wait
to have sex until she was married.  Of course this doesn't guarantee
that you'll be disease-free, but if most people had that attitude and if
most people only had one partner in their lives (that being their spouse),
I dare say that we wouldn't have nearly the problems with unwanted 
pregnancies that we do and with STDs.

I'll get down off my soap box now, but your comments seem to imply that
if I'm going to take a stand against abortion, that I should take 
responsibility to provide viable alternatives to it.  The only person I
can be truly responsible for, Dan, is me, and I do that.  I do what I
can to help others and part of that is talking to people about 
responsibility.  Part of it is giving my money to my church that is 
involved in helping single-parent families.  Part of it is giving my time
to working with adoption issues.  So I'd say that I can claim to be
responsible.  It's not like I'm talking about something that I'm not
doing.

>
>>Paul Conditt
> 
>Dan King


Paul Conditt
Newsgroups: talk.abortion