From: kevin@rotag.mi.org (Kevin Darcy)
Subject: Re: Christian Pro-Choicers
Organization: Who, me???
Date: Sun, 24 Jan 1993 18:14:33 GMT

In article <1993Jan21.215507.10830@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu> mcochran@nyx.cs.du.edu (Mark A. Cochran) writes:
>In article <1993Jan21.035734.4006@rotag.mi.org> kevin@rotag.mi.org (Kevin Darcy) writes:
>>In article <1993Jan19.050539.6745@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu> mcochran@nyx.cs.du.edu (Mark A. Cochran) writes:
>>>In article <llm1glINN8r8@ar-rimal.cs.utexas.edu> brinkley@cs.utexas.edu (Paul Brinkley) writes:
>>>
>>>[Deletions. Just 'cause I wanna]
>>>
>>>>If she mainly doesn't want the physical difficulty of the pregnancy
>>>>process, how about an incubator that could support the fetus until
>>>>its original projected birthdate?  Anyone happen know what state
>>>>research is in concerning this?
>>>>
>>>No state at all, really. Look at it from a pragmatic standpoint. Are
>>>*you* going to pay for this incubator? Please keep in mind that
>>>current technology can easily run over $5000 a day for an NICU stay.
>>>What you are describing would be vastly more complex, and
>>>correspondingly more expensive.
>>>It's a nice idea, but it just doesn't fit the realities of life. We
>>>can't even save all the ones people *do* want, let alone the ones they
>>>don't want.
>>
>>Yeah, and the world is flat, too, Mark. If you don't believe it, just keep
>>sailing East until you fall off the edge...
>>
>>Since the dawn of time, visionaries have had to endure the constant whines 
>>and doubts and putdowns of non-visionaries. The wheel? It'll never work! 
>>Fire? Just a fad! Organ transplants? You're nuts! Even as a medical layperson,
>>I can imagine an inexpensive "auto-momma", Mark. Maybe not in my lifetime, 
>>but sometime. Why can't you? 
>>
>I can envision a metal momma just fine kibble, and no doubt in much
>greater clarity and detail then you. 

You impress the crap outta me with your immense medical prowess, O Great 
Healer.

>Unlike you, however, I live in the Real World (tm) and this just is
>not going to be a reality anytime soon. If you want to leave it open
>to *incredibly* expensive metal mommas, then in perhaps 50-75 years,
>we might see something. But an inexpensive one? 

Yup, an inexpensive one. Once medical science does its bit, then engineering
and manufacturing can work to make the device cheaper. This is assuming that 
engineering and manufacturing can pry the secrets loose from the claws of
the Medical Elite, of course. After all, more expensive metal mommas mean
more medical insurance $$$'s, right?

>Kibble, a vaccine
>against the mumps will cost you $50 in most pediatricians office. And
>the cost certainly is not going down. 

The cost "wasn't going down" on my 1200 bps modem when I bought it several
years ago, either. Now I could buy the same for maybe 1/10 the price. Of
course, no-one actually USES 1200 bps modems, so mine gathers dust now.

>If you can envision an
>inexpensive metal moma in the near future, you're either desperately in
>need of a reality check, or merely woefully ignorant about life
>support technologies.

I never said "near future".

The point here is not to legislate with the assumption that an inexpensive 
auto-momma is just around the corner; it's to legislate using a STRUCTURE 
which will accommodate inexpensive auto-mommas if and when they arrive.
Paternity child-support is a perfect example of short-sighted legislation
which implicitly ASSUMED a certain state of affairs, i.e. that abortion would 
continue to be illegal. When that assumption changed, and social attitudes 
towards abortion changed along with it, the paternity laws went from having 
positive social value to having negative social value. I don't want the same 
sort of thing happening with the abortion issue. If the abortion issue is 
looked at in terms of Bodily Autonomy, then auto-mommas are not a problem. 
If it's looked at strictly in terms of fetal personhood, then a fetus in an 
auto-momma is presumably just as much a person as one in a womb, so the 
basic difference of opinion still continues. I don't wish this divisive 
social conflict on future generations. Do you?

>But since it's you, it's quite possibly both.

Cheap shot.

								- Kevin
Newsgroups: talk.abortion,misc.legal