From: hsims@vax.clarku.edu
Newsgroups: talk.abortion
Subject: RE: Blackmun calls the Roe v. Wade dividing line ""arbitrary""
Date: 30 Dec 92 17:22:42 GMT
Organization: Clark University

In a previous article, vengeanc@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu () wrote:
>smezias@rnd.GBA.NYU.EDU (Stephen J. Mezias) writes:
> 
>>Also generally, I believe that state actions that restrict individual
>>liberty should be held to strict standards of justification.  I
>>believe this is doubly true for actions that would impose costs
>>disproportionately on traditionally disenfranchised groups.  With
>>specific respect to abortion, I would add that the right of women to
>>protection from the public health risk of illegal abortions and forced
> 
>The over 90% of illegal abortions performed before Roe v Wade  were done
>by licensed physicians in good medical standing in their own offices.
>The number of deaths before and after Roe v Wade showed no statistical
>decrease in deaths resulting from abortion.

Where exactly do you get these statistics from?  I would appreciate some 
references, since your data conflicts with what I have read.

>Stop perpetuating these lies.
> 
>>pregnancy far outweighs any right to state protection for the
>>*potential citizens*.  State resources are scarce, and I find it
> 
>Ms. Smith consented to have sex.  In so doing she has surrendered her rights
>to bodily integrity and personal autonomy.  

Consent to sex does not equal consent to nine months of pregnancy.

>There is a BIG difference 
>between allowing someone to die through INaction and ACTIVELY hacking someone
>to pieces.  Abortion is a physical violation of the bodily integrity and
>personal autonomy of someone who had NO CHOICE but to be brought into existance.
>This isn't the same thing as providing handouts to a welfare family.  If you
>cut their public aid, they still have the chance to provide for themselves.
>If they died, that would still have been at least partially their fault.
>Now, if I walked into that welfare family house with an axe and took 20 minutes
>to slowly cut each person to pieces, that would be murder.

Of course it would.  Welfare families are citizens with legal rights.  Fetuses 
are not.  Also, the welfare family you describe was living in a house, not 
inside another human being causing physicial harm to him/her.

>You need to get a sense of proportion to your reality.
> 
>>impossible to justify using them to force one citizen to donate bodily
>>resources to save another citizen.  The fact that the affected
> 
>Hmm... the draft has only involved citizens who were uniquely men.  Is this
>equal protection under the law?  I think not.  
> 
>In fact, our MALE citizens have been drafted to save people who WEREN'T
>even U.S. citizens... I think that is even more unequal.   Don't forget
>that millions of MEN have died fighting for freedom so you can whine
>about whether or not you can be promiscuous and hack babies to pieces.  

Married, non-promiscuous women have abortions too.  And I don't for one second 
believe that Mr. Mezias wants to "hack babies to pieces".  If you know of 
anyone who IS hacking babies to pieces, I hope you will report them to the 
police, since hacking babies to pieces is illegal.

>>citizens would be uniquely women also raises concerns regarding equal
>>protection under the law.  In addition, absent a precedent for such
>>restrictions on citizens for the sake of other *citizens*, I find it
>>hard to advocate policies to `save' *potential* citizens with the
>>bodily servitude of citizens.
> 
>Once again, Ms. Smith went and had sex without using her brain.  

Once again, consent to sex, with or without using brains, does not equal 
consent to nine months of pregnancy.  You keep refering to a woman who 
consented to sex.  What kind of punishment would you hand out to men who 
consent to sex?  Do you think only women should suffer bodily harm for the
horrible "crime" of consenting to sex?

>Murder is murder.  

Sure is.  However, abortion is not murder.

>There is no such thing as a potential citizen except in the legal
>sense.  Morally and scientifically life begins at fertilization, and so does
>citizenhood.                                                     ^^^^^^^^^^^   
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^
Try claiming a tax-deduction for a fetus, and you'll learn that citizenhood 
does NOT begin at fertilization.

>>SJM
>Edward Simmonds

				.... Heather.
Newsgroups: talk.abortion