From: bmc@mayo.edu (Bruce Cameron)
Subject: Re: The Nurturing Network 1-800-TNN-4MOM
Organization: Mayo Foundation, Rochester MN. Campus
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 92 21:07:39 GMT

In article <nyikos.714849525@milo.math.scarolina.edu>, nyikos@math.scarolina.edu (Peter Nyikos) writes:
|> In <1992Aug21.212103.22958@bmw.mayo.edu> bmc@mayo.edu (Bruce Cameron) writes:
|> 
|> 
|> >I for one don't lie to myself as to what an abortion is (the termination 
|> >of a pregnancy)
|> 
|> {Satire} That's only partly true (see below),
|> {end of satire} and it's certainly not the whole truth.
|>

Excuse me, but my statement is only partially true??? What part
is false, that I don't lie to myself or that abortion is the
termination of a pregnancy?
 
|> >, or as to what is involved in all the forms that termination
|> >can take.
|> 
|> >	--surgical abortion:    death of a fetus
|> >	--spontanious abortion: death of a fetus
|> >	--birth:                a live infant
|> 
|> 
|> >I am aware that the most common abortions are spontanious abortions
|> 
|> {Satire} Not if you use the usual Ob/Gyn definition of "pregnancy", 
|> which begins
|> two weeks prior to most fertilizations.  Then well over 90% of all
|> "abortions" take the form of expulsion of the ovum at menstruation.
|> {End of satire}
|>

Gee, I guess my Ob/Gyn texts are all wrong and that those Reproductive
Endocronologists I work with are really mixed up. They seem to think 
that pregnancy begins with fertilization.
 
|> > and birth and that surgical abortions are in the minority and that laws 
|> >prohibiting abortion must distinguish between all the forms of abortion, 
|> 
|> So far as I know, they all do and have done this.  Do you know of
|> any exceptions.
|>

I don't know of any that do differentiate between a spontanious abortion
and a surgical one, they do seem to recognize birth as a seperate (good)
form of termination.

Thought experiment:
	you are presented with a dead premature infant say 20 weeks
	gestation, now without asking anyone, how do you determine
	if that infant was born, surgically aborted or spontaniously
	aborted?
 
|> >that they will require a violation of doctor-patient confidentiality, the
|> >right to protection from self-incrimination 
|> 
|> Since women are not targeted by the laws, it is only the doctor [read:
|> abortionist] who will be self-incriminating if he offers an abortion
|> to a woman who did not particularly want one in the first place.  If
|> she did, then I'm not sure what you are talking about.
|>

	So, the woman is to prosecute the doctor for performing
	elective surgery, or do you envision that there are
	billions & billions of doctors in the US that are out
	there jumping out of bushes, grabbing pregnant women,
	strapping them to tables and aborting their fetuses?
 
|> >and will be about as effective
|> >as the war on drugs and prohibition.
|> 
|> though considerably more "effective" [I'm guessing as to what you mean by
|> this] than the laws agains perjury.  Should we do away with laws against
|> perjury for that reason?
|>

By effective, I mean that a prohibition on abortion would substantially reduce
the number of abortions, thus substantially increasing the number of live births
in this country without incurring an extraordinary cost to the taxpayer and without
violating or further restricting a citizen's rights.

Neither prohibition or the war on drugs is effective, the laws against
perjury to the best of my knowledge are.
 
|> >I also realize that once a government has been granted the power to prohibit
|> >abortion it has also gained the power to mandate abortion.
|> 
|> Ten thousand repetitions of this standard NOW-NARAL-PP lie don't make a truth.
|>

What part of this is false?
The former government of Romania and the current government of China granted
themselves power over their citizens reproductive rights, in the former, the
government prohibited abortion, in the latter, the government requires
abortion.

Feel free to explain how one would prohibit a government that has
the power to prohibit abortion from requiring abortion at some later
date. Keep in mind that governments seem to have the ability to 
work arround annoying limitations when required to do so (eg RICO).


-- 
--Bruce

"Truth is ultimately a philosophical concept,...,
 and standards of truth are adequate for practical
 purposes if they are substantially more reliable 
 then the system undergoing evaluation"
				C. E. Metz
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