From: chrisl@stpaul.gov (Chris A Lyman)
Subject: Re: Christian Pro-Choicers
Organization: City of Saint Paul Public Works
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1993 15:46:31 GMT

sa114984@longs.LANCE.ColoState.Edu (Steven Arnold) writes:
> chrisl@stpaul.gov (Chris A Lyman) writes:
>> cobb@alexia.lis.uiuc.edu (Mike Cobb) asks why analogies to the H********
>> are not useful:

>>> Anything emotionally painful or visually repulsive (pictures) are
>>> impossible to use when discussing the issue.  It hurts to much to
>>> see that these "things" look so much like a little child.  It makes
>>> us feel better to keep those emotionally troubling issues out of the
>>> discussion.  We're happy, and the child, is dead.  It is emotionally
>>> troubling.  Just asked the group Women Exploited by Abortion.

>> Of course, when we discuss legislation or public policy that abridges or
>> curtails a woman's right to control her body, we should get ourselves as
>> emotionally riled up as possible.

>        Legislation forbidding many abortions does not curtail or abridge
> a woman's right of ownership over her own body.  Such laws govern and
> dictate the method by which she waives that right and to what extent.
>        Laws forbidding abortion (except in the case of rape) merely require
> the woman to not kill the person she caused to be in her womb.

I said nothing about ownership, Steve, I said "control".  Does a woman have
a right to control her body or doesn't she?  If she doesn't, then "ownership"
is rather a moot point, isn't it?

>>  Forget the 9th, 10th and 14th Amendments,

>        Every time an abortion is performed we forget the 14th amendment.

Persons _born_ or naturalized in the U.S. are covered by the 14th; z/e/f's
are not.

>        As for the 9th and 10th, it is reasonable to assume that they were
> included to make it clear that states could add other rights beyond those
> found in the Bill of Rights; in other words, the purpose was to make it
> clear that merely because the federal government had established certain
> rights, this did not imply that states couldn't guarantee additional rights.
>        You really have to stretch seriously to read a right to abortion in
> the 9th and 10th.

I don't have my copy of the Constitution handy, but as I recall, the 9th and
10th Amendments state that powers not explicitly given to the federal gov't
are retained by the states, and that rights not explicitly spelled out in the
Bill of Rights are retained by the people.

>> forget Griswold vs. Connecticut, forget Roe vs. Wade,

>        Let's!

If we forget Griswold, we allow states to pass laws banning contraception.
That would increase the demand for abortion, would it not?  Whose side are
you on?

>> forget the hundreds of hours that medical, legal, pastoral professionals
>> and others have expended in research, meditation and writing on this issue.

>        Medical research cannot tell us when the baby becomes a person.  It
> can tell us that from conception on we are dealing with a living human being
> who will eventually grow into a full-grown adult human being.  Denying
> personhood to the unborn child requires an assumption that human governments
> can have a right to decide, based on some criteria, that some living human
> beings are persons while others are not.

Z/e/f's have never had the same social, legal or religious standing as born
persons in any society that I am aware of.  This "decision", as you call it,
is a default that goes all the way back to antiquity.  You must admit that
conferring rights to z/e/f's is a fairly radical idea.  How do you justify
assigning rights to z/e/f's that no born persons enjoys and that cancel a
woman's right to control her body?

>        This idea can be denied in the first place.  Why accept it at all?
> But  I deny it because I can't think of any criteria for personhood that
> both refuse personhood to the unborn, and that are also simultaneously:
>        1. Medically meaningful,
>        2. Objective, measurable, not matters of opinion, and
>        3. Free of arbitrary exceptions.
> Birth, for example, while it is an objective event, is not medically
> meaningful as far as the development of the child.  The child is not
> appreciably more intelligent out of the womb than it was in the womb.
> "Birth" passes tests 2 and 3 but fails test 1.

Birth is not medically meaningful, eh?  The baby starts breathing on its own,
is disconnected from its mother and has to take nourishment on its own (with
assistance), has to eliminate waste on its own, is bombarded by visual, aural
and touch stimuli, etc., etc.

Get a clue, Steve.

[--stuff about intelligence deleted--]

>        Every other test I have ever heard of fails one or the other of these
> tests, except for conception.  Conception passes test 1 -- it is about as
> medically meaningful as an event can get, because it marks the creation of
> a new individual in the human species.  It passes test 2 because it is
> objective, measurable, knowable.  It passes test 3 because there are no
> exceptions whatsoever, much less any arbitrary exceptions.

Nature can be very arbitrary.  After all, 1/2 to 2/3 of all conceptions never
implant, or spontaneously abort.  If all these "new individuals" can be
aborted naturally for no reason at all, why should a woman be denied control
over her body for reasons that are compelling for her?

[--deletions--]

>> [...] we could build a case that the availability of safe, legal abortion
>> has certain affects on society and public health, positive and negative,
>> and whether these affects, if negative, are compelling reasons to place
>> restrictions on abortion.

>        Come on.  Even if, say, killing Jews were somehow beneficial to
> society, we wouldn't have a right to do it.

Read what I wrote, will you?  The availability of safe, legal abortion has
certain affects on society and public health, do they not?  Are these affects
positive or negative, or a little of each?  If there are negative affects,
what are they?  Are they compelling enough that we should place restrictions
on abortions?

And is the above easier for you to read?

>>> So, please explain why it is such a stupid and  senseless argument, without
>>> just saying it is so.  It's convenient to not have to, but we don't get
>>> anywhere.  It is an emotional issue, for everyone.  

>> Since I don't remember you participating when I last wrote this, I'll be
>> happy to explain.  The Holocaust was the result of a totalitarian government
>> policy.

>        So is abortion.

Abortion is the result of a totalitarian government policy?  Please elaborate
on this fascinating claim.

>>  It was systematic and deliberately cruel.

>       The deliberate cruelty aggravates the crime, but the fundamental crime
> was the killing of innocent people.  It would have been wrong even if there
> was no cruelty involved.

>> The total number of abortions in the U.S. is the result of an _aggregate_
>> of decisions of individual women.

>        The number of rapes in the United States, also, is the result of an
> _aggregate_ of decisions of individual men.

The number of non sequitors by Steve Arnold is the result of an _aggregate_
of decisions of individual brain cells.  In other words, will you please
try to concentrate?

>> It is in no way systematic or deliberately cruel.

>        So abortion is the soulless and cold killing of millions, while the
> Holocaust was the hateful and viscious killing of millions.  Somehow, I'm
> not comforted.

As I am not comforted to know that it seems perfectly in character for you to
equate the lives of born persons with those of z/e/f's.

>> The only attribute that the Holocaust and abortion share is that the
>> numbers are real big.

>        Another similarity is the refusal of people to recognize the
> personhood and humanity of "inferior" races and unborn children.  In both
> cases, the reasons for the refusal were arbitrary.

In your humble opinion.  We've already discussed personhood above; hit 'b'
if you want to see it again.

>> Imo, the Holocaust is not an analogy to anything.  It simply is what it is,
>> an expression of hatred and bigotry.  It is a monument to what happens when
>> an entire society surrenders to the Big Lie that all problems are caused by
>> that different sort of person over there.

>        The Holocaust was the killing of millions of people because someone
> deemed them inconvenient.  So is the abortion holocaust.

If you were wondering why I made certain cutting remarks above, this is why.
I'm sorry, Steve, the Jews, gypsies, Slavs, and others weren't massacred
because the Third Reich deemed them 'inconvenient'.  They were killed in
the name of 'racial purity' and also because they were deemed 'scapegoats'.
Learn the difference.

-- 
Chris Lyman   /  email: chrisl@pwcs.stpaul.gov  /   Disclaimer:  I said WHAT?
    "If you wants to get elected president, you'se got to think up some
     memoraboble homily so's school kids can be pestered into memorizin'
     it, even if they don't know what it means." -- Walt Kelly, "Pogo" 
Newsgroups: talk.abortion