From: brinkley@cs.utexas.edu (Paul Brinkley)
Newsgroups: talk.abortion
Subject: Re: Question for Paul Brinkley.
Date: 28 Jan 1993 15:59:05 -0600
Organization: CS Dept, University of Texas at Austin
NNTP-Posting-Host: sahara.cs.utexas.edu

In article <36001@rnd.GBA.NYU.EDU> smezias@rnd.GBA.NYU.EDU (Stephen J. Mezias) writes:
>In article <lme140INNb0t@sahara.cs.utexas.edu> brinkley@cs.utexas.edu
>(Paul Brinkley) writes to Adrienne:
>
>>Are you saying that I _am_ treating anyone's rights as unimportant?  Namely
>>women's?  I thought I had made the opposite clear.  If not, I shall try
>>again.  Do you understand that I am forced to make what appears to me to
>>be a choice between two fundamental rights?  If you were forced to choose
>>between two fundamental rights, what would you do?
>
>I would examine the situation and think about which rights should take
>precedence.  In the case of abortion, I see two entities: a woman and
>a /z/e/f/ which is inside her body.  Both are alive.  The second
>entity will only remain alive as long as it can use the bodily
>resources of the woman.  In general I believe that people are entitled
>to decide whether their bodies will be used to support another life.
>This is why I believe that blood, tissue, and organ donations should
>be voluntary.  I believe that even a criminal whose crime injured
>someone should not be compelled to donate bodily resources to save
>that person's life.  Similarly, I don't believe that a father should
>be compelled to donate tissue, blood, or organs to save the life of
>his child.  Why is it you want to compel non-criminal women to donate
>their bodily resources to support /z/e/f/s they do not wish to
>support?  

(Wow!  My name is now the title of a thread.  I have achieved USENET
immortality.  *bask*  :-)  RFD for alt.fan.paul-brinkley, anyone?  Um,
okay, I thought not.  You there, put that tomato down!)

Hmm?  Oh yes, your question.  I'll try to answer it first, and then
follow it with some asides.

Simply put, a z/e/f looks like it should be entitled to the rights and
liberties outlined in the Constitution, _in consideration of_ the
information I have so far.  Furthermore, if a z/e/f is allowed the
liberty of existence - or life, as it is commonly synonymized - this
liberty precedes the liberty of bodily autonomy, or privacy as some
like to call it.  (I hope I'm getting better at my terminology...)

It looks like the primary difference in our trains of thought, is that
I hold existence over bodily autonomy, and you hold the opposite.  (In
this case, if not all cases.)

But to conclude my answer, I _don't_ really want to compel non-criminal
women (or even criminal women, for that matter) to donate bodily resources
against their will.  I'd _much_ rather find an alternative that will
let them keep their autonomy, and either let the z/e/f live to maturity,
or avoid the existence of one in the first place.  (I have no qualms with
contraceptives.)  So far, though, no one has been able to find such an
alternative.  (Sure.  Abstinence.  But what about rape?)

I hope that answered your question.  Now the asides:

(Why are you writing it "/z/e/f/"?)

Well, your reasoning looks pretty solid, and you even managed to bring
up that argument which I've seen for the third time.  Basically, by
pro-life's standards, we should require people to give up their organs
(within reason, can't be giving away two kidneys), during life and
perhaps even after death, in order to save lives.  So far, this looks
like the sharpest stick you can use on pro-life; I can't see many ways
around it.  Soon as I can, I'll be asking some friends about it.
(Personally, I intend to give my internal organs up after my death anyway,
so _I_ probably wouldn't have any problems with this myself.  It's the
inconsistency that bothers me.)

Therefore, I'd like to hear any good pro-life responses to that argument,
to see how poke-proof it is.  (Devil's advocate time...)  One possible
lead:  try to find some situation where a rule of "privacy precedes life"
would lead to something unpleasant-looking to both pro-choice and pro-life.

Xref: sparky talk.abortion:57184 talk.politics.misc:69026 alt.fan.rush-limbaugh:13362 alt.rush-limbaugh:14720 alt.fan.rush-limbaugh.tv-show:181 talk.religion.misc:27167