From: steven@jaynes ( Steve Novak)
Subject: Re: Guilty?
Organization: U S WEST Advanced Technologies
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1992 21:22:10 GMT

> = (Don Beaver) writes:
>> = ( Steve Novak) writes:
>>> = (Don Beaver) writes:
>>>> = Janis Cortese wrote the following on soc.women (moderated):

>>>> If I had a kid and someone threatened it, I'd slit their
>>>> throat wide open and drink their blood with a smile in my face.

>>My, that conjures up a rather graphic image, doesn't it?

>[comparison of Will Steeves statements to Janis Cortese's]

>>>What about "throwing salt in the wounds" -- ie., mental cruelty?

>>He needs help for that.  It's really none of his business.  If he
>>doesn't like the woman, or her actions, he need only leave.  

>Say that to battered wives.  

Why, was Steeves a batterred husband?

>Say it to the governors who pardoned them for murdering their husbands.

If it was self-defense, of course, it isn't murder.  Are you trying to
suggest that Steeves' feelings were hurt so terribly that he's justified
in physically assaulting and killing the woman?

BTW - many times the JURY absolves such women *and* children (also, I'm
guessing, the occasional battered husband).  Don't make it sound like
some collective governors' plot.

>>(BTW, when did you turn from a t.a. fence straddler into a pro-life
>>apologist?)

>Considering that the favorite occupation of t.a. writers seems to
>be shooting fish in a barrel (blasting anyone who doesn't share the
>opinion that a fetus is anything more than a cancerous parasite  as being
>a member of the religious right, and blasting those religious objectors
>brave or unknowing enough to say anything as having no rights to 
>their opinions), I hoped to see some more intelligent discussion
>on a.a.i, especially about balancing rights among various parties.

By becoming solely a pro-life apologist?  OK; if that's what you
consider "balanced".  

Pro-"lifers" have no "rights" being threatened.  Pro-choice women, and
by extension the supportive male contigent, are the ones being
threatened with religiously-based forced birth.

>Oh well.  I don't read t.a. anyway, for that reason.

Then just how do you know how biased all we pro-choicers are?  

LM> considering why she might have waited a year to "throw salt in the wounds,"
LM>Since you seem to have an outspoken agenda, it's no great surprise that
LM>you assume she waited a year in order to throw salt in the wounds, rather
LM>than simply not telling him because she knew it would upset him (or because
LM>she knew that (a hypothetical) he was deranged and actually *would* try to
LM>kill her if he found out), and it happened to come out a year later.

>>>I assume no such thing, even having heard that she made death threats.
>>>It's clear that there are a lot of possibilities.  I'd give her the
>>>benefit of the doubt if we were discussing why she would have waited 
>>>a year and whether we should regard it as a despicable act.  

>>Ain't you sweet?  Whatever her reasons, it's her body and decision.  Not
>>Steeves.  If Steeves found that communication between the two of them
>>was at an unacceptable (to him) state, then it's time to leave that
>>relationship.  I fail to see the problem.

>You seem to have misread this: I'm referring to her motivation for
>waiting a year and then telling him, not to the abortion.

I did not misread.  I repeat my last statement.  Her motivations do
*not* matter when it comes to being physically attacked and possibly
killed.

>You raise an interesting point: how is a husband to know if the
>communication in a marriage is in an unacceptable state, so that he
>can exercise this "right" to leave the relationship?

In Steeves' case, when that woman tells him after a year that she got an
abortion.  Couples break up every day for various reasons after their
initial romance seemed so perfect.  I definitely acknowledge the HURT
from a woman that did as Steeves' did, along with many OTHER emotional
trauma resulting in many other breakups.  It simply has nothing to do
with *forcing* a woman to notify a man when she gets an abortion.

>>>At the same time, I'd give Will the benefit of the doubt, especially
>>>given that he consistently tries to publicize the trauma of abortion
>>>on men.  If you had read his earlier writings, you might have guessed
>>>that his explicit description came from a deeply felt agony over abortion
>>>and the ignoring or mistreatment of men in regard to abortion.  

>>Since "men" don't have to carry a fetus to term, and since "men" aren't
>>the ones being faced with forced birth from you turkeys, then I'll
>>venture that Steeves' "deeply felt agony" is misplaced and unwarranted -
>>unless you wanna start sanctifying the fetus again.

>Circles again.  Men are forced to carry a child to adulthood: 18 years of
>indenture.  

I, personally, am in favor of child support reform.  I do not agree that
a man *automatically* must pay child support.                  

>Men also have feelings and beliefs -- at least some men do.
>They aren't necessarily the same as yours.  Why do you have such a 
>hard time recognizing that?

I do recognize it.  In responding, I've obviously recognized Steeves'.
I simply think such "feelings and beliefs" (i.e., men wanting to control
a woman because of misplaced fetal worship) have no relevance to why or
why not a woman should be "forced" to do something for the man who
impregnated her.

>My only guess is that your apparent belief that fetuses are absolutely
>trivial non-entities must blind you to the idea that other people, 
>men and women alike, might not think so.

*THAT IS FINE*.  They can believe whatever they please, and they can
live their beliefs every day.  Just keep your beliefs to yourself.
That's all pro-choicers ask.  Pro-"lifers" *demand* much, much more.

>Flip one bit in your approach and you could be a member of your
>much-feared stereotypical religious right.

Hardly.  I would not force my beliefs on others.  Also, I don't waste my
time on earth slavishly worshipping some highly unlikely belief system.

Religious fanatics want everyone to *live* like they live.  See the
difference?

>The only "turkey" suggesting "forced birth" was you.

You're just not honest enough to admit that anti-abortionism is EXACTLY
that.  That's your problem, not mine, and that's your smokescreen.


-- 
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| Steve Novak |    |"Wacker the K"| 
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steven@advtech.USWest.Com
Newsgroups: alt.abortion.inequity,talk.abortion,alt.discrimination