From: stevef@bug.UUCP (Steven R Fordyce)
Newsgroups: talk.abortion,alt.rush-limbaugh
Subject: Re: from dan bredy: rights and responsibilities
Summary: A fetus is a child.
Keywords: child, fetus
Date: 17 Dec 92 16:45:35 GMT
Reply-To: stevef@bug.UUCP (Steven R Fordyce)
Organization: HALF, Beaverton, OR

In article <3d-23lm@rpi.edu> bredy@sneaks.kodak.com writes:
|If Mr. Fordyce would like to respond to me he can e-mail me at
|bredy@sneaks.kodak.com
|
|In article <1166@bug.UUCP>, stevef@bug.UUCP (Steven R Fordyce) writes:
|>While it is true that there are dictionaries that do not explicitly or
|>even implicitly include the unborn in their definition, in the course of
|>checking every dictionary I could get my hands on (during an earlier
|>debate on this subject in other groups), I haven't seen *one* that
|>limits the use of "child" to the born, as you do.  Admit it Zack: you
|>won't accept a definition of "child" that includes the unborn -- even
|>though most unabridged dictionaries do -- for political reasons.
|>
|From the American Heritage Dictionary ISBN 0-395-33958-8
|
|child-1. A person between birth and puberty. 2. A son or daughter.
|3. An immature person

You are using the computerized or other severly abridged version of that
dictionary.  Try an unabridged or less abridged version of that dictionary.

From "American Heritage Dictionary, Second College Edition", 1991:

	child n, . . . 2a. An unborn infant: fetus. . . .

Or how about Merriam Webster:

	child  n. 1a: an unborn or recently born human being:
		      Fetus, Infant, Baby.

That is from, "Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English
Language, Unabridged", G & C Merriam Company, 1976.

Or from Collins World:

	child  n. 1. an infant; a baby  2. an unborn offspring . . .
	Webster's New Twentieth Century Dictionary, Unabridged, 1977

Or from Simon and Schuster:

	child  n. 1. an infant; baby  2. an unborn offspring . . .
	- Websters NewWorld Dictionary, Second College Edition, 1984

|From the Meriam-Webster Concise School and Office Dictionary
|ISBN 0-87779-600-9
|
|child- 1. An unborn or recently born person. 2. a young person between
|the periods of infancy and youth 3. a male or female offspring :son,
|daughter 4. one strongly influenced by another or by a place or state of
|affairs
|
|There's your *one* dictionary definition of child that limits the use of
|"child" to the born.

But the first definition you list explicitly includes the unborn, thus
you can't claim that the use of the word "child" is limited to the born.

|At any rate there appears to be enought difference among dictionary
|definitions to warrant using a word that is less ambiguous-- such as
|fetus. But of course that wouldn't serve your agenda.

My agenda has nothing to do with this.  I'm not using the word "child"
to make any point about abortion whatever.  I only brought it up because
people like Zack were.

|Note also that both definitions agree that a child is a PERSON. Zygotes
|and fertilized eggs are not persons, and therefore not children. I
|explained this to you before, and yet you persist in this
|misrepresentation.

You are using your personal or political beliefs to define the word, not
the dictionary.  A zygote or fertilized egg (in the mother) is certainly
unborn, whether you consider it a person or not.  In fact, by your
belief, "unborn person" would be nonsensical, would it not?

|>Wrong.  The fundamental issue in the abortion debate is if the fetus
|>(or fertilized egg) is a person, and thus a human life we must respect,
|>i.e. is abortion murder.
|
|Bullshit. The fundamental issue in the abortion debate is wether the
|fetus has the right to inhabit another's body against that person's
|will.

Then your position is that even if the fetus is a person, the rights of
the mother take precedence, and she can kill that person for her
convenience (or any reason).  Is that correct?  Under what other
conditions do you think this may legitimately occur: that one person
may kill another for any reason?  If none, then what exactly is it that
makes this case (abortion) special?

|If you truly believe that the fetus is a person, to be consistent
|you would be against abortions for rape and incest.

I am.

|>The only people who make an issue of whether the fetus is a child or not
|>are people like you, Zack, who don't know what the word "child" means.
|
|The American Heritage Dictionary agrees with Zack. For someone who
|doesn't know what the word "child" means he's in good company.

Only severly abridged versions of that dictionary agree with Zack (or
you).  Check more complete versions.

|> Whether a fetus is included in the definition of the word "child" is
|>absolutely irrelevant to the question of the propriety of abortion.
|
|True. In which case, why all the intellectual masturbation about
|child=fetus|zygote|fertilized egg?

I might ask the same thing.  I didn't start this and I'm *not* making a
point about abortion by it.  Zack was trying to.

...
|>How about this from the Oxford English Dictionary (the first edition 12
|>volume set -- widely considered the most complete, proper and
|>authoritative dictionary of the English language in the world):
|>
|>	Child  1. The unborn or newly born human being;
|>		fetus, infant.  App. originally always used
|>		in relation to the mother as the 'fruit of
|>		womb'.  When the application was subsequently
|>		extended, the primitive sense was often
|>		expressed by "babe", "baby", "infant"; but
|>		"child" is still the proper term and retained
|>		in phrases as 'with child', 'to have a child',
|>		'child-birth', the verb 'to child', etc.
|>
|
|I don't see one, nada, reference to fertilized eggs or zygotes.
|Didn't you say that fertilized eggs and zygotes were chidren several
|messages back? (see the attributions )

They are unborn, are they not?

...
|>So why do you get all worked up when someone says, "Every abortion kills
|>a child.", or simply refers to the fetus as a child?
|
|Not so. Many abortions are performed before the 8th week of pregnancy 
|before the embryo becomes what is known as a fetus. In other words this
|is a LIE.

No it isn't.  The unborn includes more than just the fetus.

...
|>Not among English speakers.  What fraction of people believe in the
|>Bible is irrelevant to the point I was making.  I was using it as a
|>piece of literature as an example of proper usage, period.
|
|I know quite a few literary works which refer to pregnancy as having
|a bun in the oven. Does this make the fetus, zygote, or egg a bun?

Do you know what an idiom is?  Look it up.
-- 
orstcs!opac!bug!stevef          I am the NRA              Steven R. Fordyce
uunet!sequent!ether!stevef         . . .  	        Deer are for Dinner
Newsgroups: talk.abortion,alt.flame