From: sa114984@longs.lance.colostate.edu (Steven Arnold)
Newsgroups: talk.abortion
Subject: Re: In Suzanne's Defense
Date: 12 Oct 92 02:24:37 GMT
Organization: Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO  80523

In article <1992Oct9.185925.19078@netcom.com>, ray@netcom.com (Ray Fischer) writes:
|> sa114984@longs.lance.colostate.edu (Steven Arnold) writes ...
|> > ray@netcom.com (Ray Fischer) writes:
|> >|> c164-ad@po.berkeley.edu (Martin Guerrero) writes ...
|> >|> >Approximately 98% of abortions in America are done for social reasons.
|> >|> >Now do these social reasons take precedence over destroying human life?
|> >|> 
|> >|> Sanctimonious hypocrite.  Why don't you give all of your money to save
|> >|> the lives of people who are starving?  After all, getting an
|> >|> education, reading t.a., watching TV, and the like are also just
|> >|> "social" reasons.  Do _your_ social reasons take precedence over human
|> >|> life?
|> >
|> >This is a particularly ignorant posting from Ray...he must have smoking
|> >some bad dope or something...
|> 
|> Never touched the stuff.  Stopped molesting children yet?

	Of course!  I mean, no!...

|> >	Ray, neither Martin nor I nor anybody else proposes that we all are
|> >responsible for the health and safety of all other human beings on earth.  But if
|> 
|> There where do you get the notion that you are repsonsible for
|> preventing abortions?  Sounds to me like you're proposing that you are
|> responsible.

	Governments are responsible to protect the rights of life, liberty and
property of their people...ALL of them, regardless of age.

|> >I particularly bring a human being into this world, THEN I am responsible for the
|> >life and safety of that person.  You've been involved in this argument for a long
|> >time; you should know better than to say something like what you said above.
|> 
|> Well then, you'll doubtless agree that if you weren't responsible for
|> bringing a particular life into the world, then you aren't responsible
|> for its life and safety.  I hadn't realized you also were pro-choice.

	Not legally responsible, perhaps, but morally responsible to try.  I
don't think government should FORCE me to write in the defense of the unborn, but
I believe it is my moral duty to do so anyway.

|> >|> >The being that exists at conception is exactly the same being that turns
|> >|> >out to be a forty year old musician, a seven year old child prodigee or
|> >|> >whatever.  
|> >|> 
|> >|> Unmitigated bullshit.  To suggest that there are, or ever have been,
|> >|> embryonic pianists is too ridiculous a claim for even this forum.
|> >
|> >	Martin is right.  You have missed his point entirely, whether
|> >intentionally or out of ignorance I cannot tell.  Beethoven at 30 was the exact
|> >same individual human being (biologically speaking) as Beethoven at a month after
|> >conception.  The earlier Beethoven had the same potential to be a great musician
|> >as the latter Beethoven.  If you deny this you're simply denying known facts.
|> 
|> Nonsense.  There is pratically nothing a zygote has in common with a
|> 40 year old adult.

	Wrong.  They have exactly the same genetic potential.  What will a
40-year-old be like?  Depends on the genetic makeup he or she inherited at
conception.  Every bit of human growth -- down to the smallest wart, capillary or
ganglia -- is there because of the genetic makeup inherited at conception.  The
differences between a newly-conceived human being and a 40-year-old adult are
peripheral and non-essential; the similarities and commonalities are fundamental
and basic.

|>  One of the most obvious differences is that there
|> is a roughly billionfold difference in mass.

	Mass is a purely peripheral issue.  Bulk is not required for personhood.

|>  There is also a very
|> significant 40 years worth of environmental influence and experience
|> involved.

	I'll have more experience 40 years from now than I do today if I live;
but I'm Steven Arnold now and I'll still be Steven Arnold then, the same being.

|> To infer that the proto-Beethoven zygote had the makings of the 9th
|> symphony in it is flat out wrong.

	Sorry, your statement is what is flat-out wrong.  If Beethoven had had
dog chromosomes instead of the ones he actually inherited, he wouldn't have been
a musician; that's a personal guarantee.

|>  Environmental influences count for
|> a lot.

	Sure they do.  They count for a lot, but they do not make the person. 
Different people growing up in completely different environments are nonetheless
still persons.  No matter what environment a human being grows up in, he's still
a person.  No matter what environment a dog grows up in, he's still a non-person.

|>  Beethoven's music may well have (and quite likely did) come 
|> from his upbringing and his environment with only a small part of it 
|> facilitated by his genes.

	His genetic makeup causes the possibility of being a musician to EXIST in
the first place.  His particular STYLE and FORM of music come from environmental
influences.  Which is more important: the fact that you can create music at all,
or your particular environmentally-programmed musical inclinations?

|> And a last observation:  identical twins have different fingerprints.

	So?

|> Ray Fischer                   "Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth
|> ray@netcom.com                 than lies."  -- Freidrich Nietszsche
				  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
				   So, Ray, are you really convicted that this
			 	    proverb is true?

Steve

gore Clinton in '92