From: dking@raul.nas.nasa.gov (Dan King)
Subject: The Obligation Thing (Was: rights and responsibilities)
Keywords: Reasonable 
Organization: Numerical Aerodynamic Simulation Facility NASA
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 92 02:39:35 GMT
Reply-To: dking@raul.nas.nasa.gov (Dan King)


In article <Oct07.222247.41210@yuma.ACNS.ColoState.EDU> sa114984@longs.lance.colostate.edu (Steven Arnold) writes:
 
>	I included your whole article so other readers could reference it.  You
>make a good point, but in my opinion it doesn't hold.
 
Why thank you Steve.  If my argument doesn't hold, why don't you answer 
why.  What I see in your reply is an avoidance of answering.  As you
so correctly paraphrase:
 
> Paragraph 2 above
>correctly summarizes my argument.  Then you say that a woman must also be taking
>a risk of death; why should her obligation to her unborn child change simply
>because her life is in danger? 
 
>	But my argument is that a woman should do what she feels is most likely
>to save the life of her child.  She is not obliged to take, or not to take, any
>particular action (including abortion).  If she made every reasonable effort to
>save her child, I would concede that she has fulfilled her obligation.  But if
>she kills the child even though she could reasonably have saved it, she has NOT
>fulfilled her obligation.  If she removes the child knowing full well it will
>die she is guilty at least of gross negligence.  But if her very life is in
>danger, it is not reasonable, in my opinion, to demand that she allow herself to
>die to save it (although she might choose to take that course).
 
Why is it un-reasonable to expect her to give up her life for the fetus.  
In your opinion she is the one that created this obligation by having 
coitus sex, knowing when she did that it could result in pregnancy and
could also result in death.  Shouldn't we expect her to fulfill her 
obligation despite what personal sacrifices are required?  What makes
giving up her life un-reasonable but carrying to term reasonable?
 
>	There are many cases in which a woman can clearly continue to remain
>pregnant with no significant risk to herself.  In those cases, to kill it is
>clearly unreasonable.  But when the risk to her is very significant, she may
>choose to abort, hoping that the DA and a jury will agree with her that she made
>every reasonable effort to save the child. 
 
And there are the tough cases where a woman, by sacrificing her life can
allow the fetus to live.  I'm not talking about what a DA or jury will do,
but rather what this legislation you are trying to create will say.  Why
would you allow her to escape her obligation to this fetus, just because 
her life is in danger?  
 
>	These terms, like so many others in law, cannot be defined exactly for
>every case -- or if they can, I don't know how.  But I do maintain that a mother
>incurs an obligation to care for the people she brings into the world, that there
>is such a thing a "reasonable" effort to save the child's life, and that if
>something short of that reasonable effort is made, the mother (and doctor, if
>applicable) should be held legally accountable.
 
Sure this would be way simple legislation to create.  You would just pass 
legislation that would forbid all surgical abortion with no exceptions.  
Seems like a very simple law to draft.  

I would guess that part of the problem is that you want to define reasonable
to suit your feelings that the woman's life can have higher priority than
the fetus.  If your definition of reasonable can include the life of the 
woman, why can't others definition of reasonable include having to endure 
9 months of pregnancy.  What makes your definition of reasonable any better
than mine?

>Steve
 
Dan King

Newsgroups: talk.abortion