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From: simard@loral.UUCP (Ray Simard)
Newsgroups: net.abortion
Subject: Re: A Time for Anger
Message-ID: <395@loral.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 12-Aug-84 19:11:11 EDT
Article-I.D.: loral.395
Posted: Sun Aug 12 19:11:11 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 14-Aug-84 01:25:49 EDT
References: <122@bsdgvax.UUCP>, <978@shark.UUCP>
Organization: Loral Instrumentation, San Diego, CA
Lines: 77

[]
>You assume that the unborn have rights.  This is ok only if there is
>room for all of them.

Who decides if there is "enough room"?  And, if the unborn have no
rights, by what authority do the born have rights  (note: that's us).
When arbitrary conditions are used to justify the most basic of
rights, the right to live, can other erosions of rights be far behind?

Ok, so only children who are wanted and feedable have the right
to exist.  What about the living, breathing children who fail to
qualify?  Do you advocate infanticide if conditions are such that 
the child's social future appears less than ideal?

>YOU seem to want to make decisions for women!  The situation is
>a woman's rights versus an embryo's "rights".  To >guarantee< that
>one gets her (or your) way, one must go against the other.  How do
>you decide which way to go?  What assumptions are you making?
>Why do you make those assumptions?

In cases other than rape, the woman made the decision by agreeing
to sex without adequate protection.  Again, if the woman does,
for whatever reason, bear the child, then decides she would rather
have aborted it, can she destroy it?  What's the difference?

As to women's vs. embryos' rights: there is one hell of a difference
between the right to avoid the responsibility of a baby, and the
right to live!  The woman may experience hardship, but that is the
natural consequence of her chosen action (ignoring the long lines
of couples seeking to adopt).  There are numerous avenues which a woman
can take to get help in handling this responsibility, and she certainly
deserves support and compassion.  But killing the resulting person
is not part of that.


>What are you going to do about the ~70% of fertilized ova that
>die naturally?

What about them?  That is a fact of nature, not the result of a deliberate,
conscious act.  Let's stick to what we can control.

Gr  "Oh," they say "life begins at birth." or "It's the quality of life that
Gr  is important, not just life itself."  Suppose this country decided that
Gr  all liberals didn't have a life worth living, and they should be put to
Gr  death by dismemberment.  I wonder how they would like that.


>That's right, quality counts!  How would you like it if you could have
>nothing but what is necessary to keep you alive?  What if someone 
>dumped a baby on you and you HAD to care for it?  Did you know that
>it is a full time job to raise a small child?  (and it is not all
>compressed into 8 hours in the waking hours)

It wouldn't be fun.  Neither would be raising a wanted baby with a birth
defect, caring for an elderly parent, or quite a few things.  There is
something at issue here, called responsibility.  Somehow, many people have
developed a notion that if their external circumstances are not to their
liking, regardless of what they may have done to cause those circumstances,
they are absolved from ethics or moral values in changing those circum-
stances.  That is the ultimate in indulgent selfishness.  "My pleasure
comes first; if someone has to die because of it, so what?"

I do understand that there is an awesome responsibility here.  And I
do empathize with the often frightened, worried women faced with a
positive pregnancy test.  But there are other avenues, adoption being
one.  And killing a person who happens to be in a pre-birth stage of
development is no more justifiable than killing that same person after
birth, even if the same reasons for wanting to do so are present.
-- 
[                                                               ]
[     I am not a stranger, but a friend you haven't met yet     ]
[                                                               ]

Ray Simard
Loral Instrumentation, San Diego
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