Newsgroups: talk.abortion,talk.politics.animals,soc.culture.canada
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 1992 22:46:45 -0500 
From: Michael Loomis <ml3e+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Subject: Re: Vegetarianism and abortion (was Re: Speciesism)

Excerpts from netnews.talk.abortion: 18-Dec-92 Re: Vegetarianism and
abort.. by Todd Law@ai07.elcom.nite 
> >> "rights" should read "convenience".
> >
> >It is a matter of rights & how can a person who access to using e-mail
> >complain about someone else having a convenience?  The labelling of an
> >abortion a convience is one of the most basic displays of the misogyny
> >that underlies the anti-abortion movement.
>  
> I am only against a convenience that takes another individual's life.
> How you twist this into mysogyny, I would like to hear.  My mother,
> my grandmother, my girlfriend, and my sister would like to hear too,
> because they agree with me.

    Misogyny is the sole reason why there exists an abortion movement. 
This does not mean that everyone who sincerely takes an anti-abortion
stance does so because of misogyny.  One must consider how ideas are
introduced into society and why some one would wish to adopt an idea
that they have heard.  Strong believers in an idea, such as women should
not have sexual freedom, usually find it politically impossible to state
their goals clearly and have them be heard.  They must rely instead on
other arguments that will be persuasive to uninformed individuals. 
Consider the clever way that Pat Buchanan talks about race.  There were
people who supported Pat Buchanan that managed to convince themselves
that racism was not part of Mr. Buchanan's appeal.  No doubt some Pat
Buchanan voter's are sincerely anti-racist, but that does not camoflague
the racism of the core of Pat Buchanan's support.
    Similarly, the anti-abortion movement was begun by groups that truly
despise the right of individuals to control the use of their genital
organs.  The Catholic Church and Fundamentalist Protestents hate birth
control, gay people, and sex outside of marriage.  The anti-abortion
literature seethes with contempt for gay rights and birth control  In
fact, most anti-gay political activity in the United States comes from
groups which were formed to fight against abortion rights.  It seems
hard to reconcile these facts with the belief that the raison d'etre of
the anti-abortion movement is to stop the murdering of BABEES.

> >Zygotes have no nerve cells and cannot feel suffering.  I think the same
> >is true of embryos.  Fetuses probably do feel pain when they are killed
> >by an abortion.  If fetus were permitted to develop into a human being,
> >that human being will probably feel much more pain over the course of
> >its life, so why is the pain of a fetus worth mentioning?
>  
> THis is some of the most ridiculous rationalizing I've heard in a while.
> Why we don't just kill YOU now, since the pain would probably be less
> than the total integrated pain you are going to feel over the rest of
> your life.  This is one of the stupidest things I've ever read...

    In a reply to the always entertaining Ms. Regard below, Mr. Law
wishes to concoct some story of the suffering of fetus from an abortion.
 He seems to believe that the fetus's pain someway shows that abortion a
bad thing.  If the pain of a fetus is what makes abortion evil, then,
despite what Mr. Law feels to be "stupid", we should seriously evaluate
whether the ski industry should be shut down for the broken legs and
necks that result.

Excerpts from netnews.talk.abortion: 18-Dec-92 Re: Abortion, Caves,
Galen .. by Todd Law@ai07.elcom.nite 
>You are a five-month old fetus.  You are semiconcious in the womb. 
>You can hear voices outside.  One voice is saying 
> 
>"Maybe I'll get rid of it.  Afterall, it will affect my career
>for a while, and worse, it might leave stretch marks, and I won't
>look so good in a bikini.  Yes, that's what I'll do."
> 
>Sometime later, faint glimmers of light appear somewhere, you don't
>know what it is, but it is scary.  You feel something hard and
>metallic grabbing at you.  It pulls you.  You are sucked out into
>a cold noisy place.  It is the whir of a sucking machine.  What
>the hell's going on?  You are barely aware of things, but you
>realize one thing: that you are dying, and you just barely got
>started.  Pain fills your small body.  Your glimmer of consciousness
>fades, and you are pulled into death.

With nothing to do in the nine months spent in the womb, many fetuses
read books on philosophy.  Mr. Law should consider that after reading a
few books by Sartre in the womb, a fetus may prefer abortion.  At least
one thinks more babies would demand black disposal diapers.

Michaeloomis