From: dsh@odin.ece.ncsu.edu (Doug Holtsinger)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.bush
Subject: Re: Abortion
Date: 29 Aug 92 00:03:04 GMT
Organization: North Carolina State University

In article <Btp6xF.n0H@news.cso.uiuc.edu> 
jbs21045@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Joe Sterbenc) writes:

> When a baby is conceived, it is one cell. Akin to plankton. 

Plankton is not a member of the species Homo Sapiens.  

> To call a cell 
> a human being is stretching reason to support an emotional prejudice,
> as if you were calling an acorn an oak tree. 

The "acorn" analogy fails because a newborn infant could also be
considered to be an "acorn", since it isn't a fully developed member 
of the human species.

> The day before birth, the baby is fully formed in every way. To call this 
> baby inhuman or not-yet-human is equally illogical. Somewhere between these 
> points, a baby "becomes" human. There is great debate as to where. My own
> view, although I'm not unequivocal, bases the definition of life on the
> current definition of death: cessation of normal brain activity. Life, then,
> could be the beginning of normal brain activity. This is normally pegged
> by medical researchers as around three months.

An individual who is ``brain-dead'' suffers from a permanent and
irreversible cessation of all brain function, including the brain
stem.  A young fetus does not fit that definition, since the fetus
will eventually come to possess brain function.  People in temporary 
comas possess the right to life even though do not possess "normal" 
brain activity. 

> If you grant, for the sake of argument, that a baby is human from the moment
> of conception (or even ejaculation), abortion is still a just practice in
> many cases. I will paraphrase an essay describing this later. 

Why don't you post it to the newsgroup talk.abortion?  This isn't the 
best newsgroup for carrying out this kind of discussion. 

> I personally
> believe that it is the right of all women (with or without spousal consent)
> to evacuate any baby from her body at any time. 

During most abortions, the fetus (or "baby" as you prefer) is either
sucked out of the womb, or scrapped out, thus killing it in the process.
Abortion is more than just an "evacuation" of the fetus from the womb;
abortion is the killing of a human being.

> If the baby is viable at
> this time, then it is moral to preserve its life while doing so. If the baby
> is not, then there is no such moral imperative.

Unfortunately, the Supreme Court has ruled that the states may not
require the physician to employ the abortion technique which will 
provide the best opportunity for a viable fetus to be aborted alive.
(see Colautti v. Franklin, 1979).  

Why should viability be a valid criteria for assigning personhood
status to a human being?  If a woman and a newborn infant were isolated 
from civilization, and if the woman could only offer her breast milk to
feed the infant, then shouldn't the infant retain the right to life? 
The infant is dependent on a single person for survival, and so the
infant could be considered as being "non-viable". 

>Joe Sterbenc - jbs21045@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu & joe-mama@uiuc.edu - U of Illinois


Doug Holtsinger

     "My logic is based on ... a religious perspective which says
that personhood begins at birth (actually a month after birth if
we want to be precise)..."
  -- Gloria Feldt,
     chief executive, Planned Parenthood of Central and Northern Arizona,
     quoted from the Spring 1992 issue of Conscience, the quarterly 
     newsjournal of Catholics for a Free Choice (CFFC).
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