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From: barry@ames.UUCP (Ken Barry)
Newsgroups: net.abortion
Subject: Inconsistency in Right-to-life position?
Message-ID: <476@ames.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 15-Aug-84 04:23:38 EDT
Article-I.D.: ames.476
Posted: Wed Aug 15 04:23:38 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 16-Aug-84 03:48:53 EDT
Organization: NASA-Ames Research Center, Mtn. View, CA
Lines: 30

[<+>]

	In my reading of articles on the net from those who oppose abortion
I have noticed what appears to me to be an inconsistency in their position.
I would appreciate seeing some comments from anyone who agrees with both
of the following two statements:

	1) Abortion is wrong because a fetus is a human being, and aborting
	   a fetus is therefore murder.
	2) Abortion is permissable if the pregnancy was the result of
	   a rape.

	My impression is that there are a number of people out there
who would agree with both these statements, but to me they seem contradictory.
At the risk of belaboring the obvious, how is it that rape makes murder
OK? Granted that an abortion may lessen the suffering of the rape victim,
I fail to see how that can be adequate justification for an act of murder.
If killing a fetus is morally equivalent to killing any other human being,
it seems that the matter of rape is irrelevant. The fetus, after all,
was not the guilty party, nor can an abortion erase the fact of the rape.
Do two wrongs make a right?
	Since my own position is pro-choice, my concern with this question
is intellectual rather than personal, but I would still appreciate some
enlightenment.

-  From the Crow's Nest  -                      Kenn Barry
                                                NASA-Ames Research Center
                                                Moffett Field, CA
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