From: beaver@castor.cs.psu.edu (Don Beaver)
Newsgroups: alt.abortion.inequity
Subject: Re: Guilty of ... persistent misinterpretation...
Date: 29 Sep 92 01:31:20 GMT

In article <1a80teINN4r5@fido.asd.sgi.com> cj@sgi.com (C J Silverio) writes:
>---
>[followups to a.a.i, ok?]
>
>beaver@castor.cs.psu.edu (Don Beaver) writes:
>|In article <1992Sep27.142543.22029@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu> kcochran@nyx.cs.du.edu (Keith "Justified And Ancient" Cochran) writes:
>|>Gee, and why would the women "refuse to speak honestly and openly"?  Maybe
>|>becuase they've already heard about how if they "show disrespect", they'll
>|>be killed?
>
>|Again, the only proposal to kill a woman simply because she 
>|"shows disrespect" has come from you.  Is that why you are so 
>|afraid of informing men about things that might upset them?
>
>You are incorrect.  Will Steeves posted here that he would
>probably kill a woman for being disrespectful:
>
>Message-ID: <1992Sep3.025255.4014@zooid.guild.org>
>[]And with God or Allah (whomever) as my witness, I will say
>[]that in my own situation, if the woman had *not* been so
>[]respecting as to tell me before, but in fact had not only told
>[]me right afterwards, but had waited a year (!) or more, I
>[]probably would have snapped right there and killed her where she
>[]stood.

You are incorrect.  The posting does not refer to killing a woman
because she was disrespectful, although you would like to believe so.
Read it.  Read it again.  

It says that she was "respecting" and told him before.  He describes 
something that is far worse than simple disrespect (cf. "not only"),
and what could be a very cruel act: lying to a man about his child 
(and he is FREE to believe it was his child), then telling him a year 
later.  This includes the case of a twisted, vindictive woman -- and 
may even be what Will Steeves was considering at the time.


I grant you that the *literal* interpretation of Will Steeves' posting
is frightening.  But, as he has already indicated, it was certainly
not a literal posting -- and he made the unwise decision of thinking
that readers would realize, by the very nature of the posting, that it
could not be literal.

And worse, the posting itself -- even if just metaphoric -- could represent
an actual repression of women.  Will Steeves' later postings show that
that was not his intent, but given the reality of violence against women,
I think it was insensitive and unthinking.

But, unfortunately, persons like you and Keith continue to prefer a 
literal interpretation, despite Will Steeves' later clarification.


>This is what Keith (& I) find despicable and horrifying, and
>an excellent argument *against* required spousal notification.

By your principles, one threat against a bank loan officer (or even
a *thought* of violence) means that we should not inform people 
that the bank is repossessing the house and the car -- we should 
just evict them at the last moment.

Or just imagining that you might use a baseball bat to hit someone 
who was raping your mother is an indication that you should be 
locked up and baseball bats should be outlawed.

You propose thought-policing of the worst sort.

While *actual* crimes against women -- in response to informing men
of abortions -- are a good reason to consider non-notification,
angry thoughts about an imaginary and twisted situation are hardly
a good standard for decision-making.  Do you and Keith have any
evidence of crimes against women triggered by notification?  I am
not talking about general spouse-battering.

Don
-- 
beaver@cs.psu.edu                       Opinions from the PC-challenged
Xref: sparky alt.abortion.inequity:4178 talk.abortion:39803