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Date:         Tue, 28 Jul 1992 10:25:21 -0500
From:         Jason Briggs Cormier <CORJB@RHODES.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: Questions, questions

J.B. says:

>If I may, allow me to raise a couple of questions on
>abortion.  Anyone please tell me why I'm wrong, if you
>believe me to be so.

>1)  Not-withstanding any Supreme Court action, legislative
>    action, etc., shouldn't the mother bear the burden of
>    proof in explaining why the child is not a living
>    person entitled to all rights under the Constitution?
>    It is she after all who wishes to abridge those
>    rights by terminating the pregnancy and thus take
>    away the right and liberty of life.

Galya says:

     Abortion rights advocates have explained this time and time again.
     In fact, fetuses have never been considered "living persons entitled to
     all rights under the Constitution."  Abortifacients were available even
     in the seventeenth century -- the Puritan era -- and were not made
     illegal in most states until the mid-nineteenth century.  Even when the
     laws against abortion were made, abortion was not considered murder --
     as it would be were the fetus a "living person" under the Constitution.

Fetuses may not be entitled to all rights, but why is it that if
someone causes a woman to abort her child by knocking her down
a flight of stairs s/he can be charged with manslaughter?

Fetuses do have some rights, it is just a question of where to
draw the line.  I ask why draw they where pro-choice activists
would have us draw them?

Since no one can absolutely prove when life begins, shouldn't
we err on the side of saving a life?

>2)  Why is abortion the explosive issue it is in the US,
>    when it is not so in other developed countries?  Why
>    is it that the US worries more about this issue
>    than about race relations and minorities?

     Why don't you ask Randall Terry?  The American obsession with abortion is
     largely due to the religious right.

>3)  Why is it that a mother has the right to determine how
>    her body is used by a child, but not how it is used
>    by a grown adult?  Why couldn't she have said no to
>    the sex and not no to the child?  When will people in
>    American society start taking responsibility for their
>    actions rather than trying to find the easy way out?

     You seem to be forgetting that women can be raped.  Besides, what about the
     man's responsibility?  You seem to want to go back to the Victorian ideal
     when it was the woman's duty to say no--but the men could visit prostitutes
     any time they felt like it.

I was not counting rape in the argument since most people
agree that abortion should be legal in the case of rape.
I have no such opinion, but one should leave the hypothetical
situations out of an issue when attempting to discuss
the real tenor of the situation.

>    I am not advocating outlawing sex outside of marriage,
>    but women should be aware that having sex brings up the
>    possibility of having a child.  Consequently people
>    should not have sex without being willing to handle a
>    child.  What is so hard about this?

     I think that most women ARE aware that having sex can lead to pregnancy.
     Perhaps men should be more aware; after all, it is usually the man who
     refuses to wear a condom.

This argument in particular seems to be one of women's rights.
This is understandable.  Why don't women take more of an
assertive role in society.

I accept that the male-dominated society is difficult with
which to deal, but nonetheless, women have all rights that
men do.  Whose fault is it that women are conditioned the
way in which they are?  It is not merely the men, but also
the mothers, aunts, grandmothers, etc.  This brings the point
up that society needs adjusting.  I do not think that
arbitrarily deciding when life begins and giving a mother the
right terminate her pregnancy will help change society in
any manner for the good.

-j.b.

>-j.b.
        -----Gayla
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