From: shadow@casbah.acns.nwu.edu (John Paulus)
Subject: Re: life
Organization: Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1992 21:52:59 GMT

In article <JBATES.92Apr16101459@pinocchio.pinocchio.encore.com> jbates@pinocchio.encore.com (John Bates) writes:
>In article <1992Apr15.220744.20050@news.iastate.edu> 
>xcz13@isuvax.iastate.edu writes:
>
>>How does taking medicine end lives?
>
>	Why, it causes the death of millions of germs and bacteria.
Yeah? So? EVERY ACTION YOU DO involves killing germs & bacteria

>
>>How does reciving surgury end lives?
>
>	Why, it causes the death of millions of human cells.
>
So does scraping your knee or washing your hands.
>>I thought that taking medicine helped to save the life of the person taking
>>it. 
>
>	It may do that, but at the cost of the lives of all those germs.
>
>>Gee if taking medicine ends lives then maybe I shouldnt use my Ventolin
>>Inhaler. So what if an Asthma attack can and oftin times does (deaths do to
>>related to asthma in smallchildren incresed by around 50% in the last 10
>>years) kill.Maybe you should explane how my using an inhaler ends lives. 
>
>	Why, think of the potential lives of all those parasites and bacteria
>that could live off of your rotting corpse. Don't you think that they have
>the right to life?
OF COURSE they do NOT have a right to "life" as they are not human beings. Not
superficially (i.e. "looking at it") or genetically.
>
>>You know I also thought that surgery was suposed to save the lives of those
>>receving them I did not know that they ended lives. The only cases that I can
>>think of were death is even remotly involved is 1. abortion  2.the patichint
>>dies on the table  3. transplants- the way I understude this was that the
>>doner had already died of something else and requested that there orgins
>>go to someone who neaded them.
>
>	So, when people receive appendectomies, the surgeons have a separate
>support apparatus set up to preserve the life of the appendix? People take
>them home and care for them, since they are indeed lives, and human to boot?
>
Appendices are not alive. Also, if would could "care" for it, the appendix
would not grow as a fetus would.
>>finly, let see, hmmm. Killing for food. A mater of servival. I dont eat
>>eventualy I die. A part of nature. Abortion. Usualy killing for convenence.
>>Not nessasary. Not for servival. Also it seems to me that those whose lives 
>>are most likly to be ruened do not make a the majority of abortions that 
>>accure, probly cant aford it, most of the people who are gitting abortions
>>are uperper middal class white. At lest thats the way I understand it.
>
>	Oh, so what you're saying is that you're only pro-life when it's
>convenient. When it's *your* life at stake, you're willing to sacrifice
>other lives. When it's someone *else's* life at stake, you want to tell
>them what to do.
>
>	If you get the feeling that I'm making fun of you, it's because
>I am. It is not at all constructive to say "It's a life, and therefore it's
>murder" or even "It's a human life, and therefore it's murder". Please
>share with us what it is about the fetus that makes it special. Please
>share with us what it is about the fetus that gives it rights equal to or
>exceeding the rights of born, living human beings. And please tell me how to
>parse the last two sentences in your post.
>
>John


I can't tell you what the poster of  the original message was thinking, but I
believe that since A)The fetus has the full genetic material of a being
distinct from its mother and B)will grow and develop more fully
that it is a human life (among other reasons).

I was wondering---what do YOU think a fetus is? What do you base your
information? 



--JP--