bernie (03/04/83)
It's hard to know whether tina@phs was serious in her comments, but I'll assume she is and procedure from there. (If I'm wrong in the above assumption, Tina, let me know). To say that an embryo is the same as a full-grown human being is absurd. At the moment of conception, an embryo is a cluster of cells so small that they're barely visible under a microscope; to claim that that amorphous clump of organic matter is "human" is like claiming that a seed is "the same as" a full-grown tree. I don't argue that at some point in its development the embryo becomes an independent human being, and I can see some purpose in discussing the question of when exactly that point is, but I can say with some certainty that it's not at conception. --Bernie Roehl ...decvax!watmath!watarts!bernie
tfl (03/09/83)
Unfortunately, the issue of abortion has been reduced to the argument: if a fetus is a person => abortion is morally wrong if a fetus is not a person => abortion is not morally wrong The problem is, neither of this is a particularly justified implication. Also, as we've seen over the years, there are no conclusive arguments either way. So, being ambivolent on the question (thank god I'll never have to decide), let me pose some questions that should be answered even before one attempts either of the two arguments above: 1) What is a `person?' 2) Is it ever morally correct for someone to take the life of a person? If so, what are the circumstances? 3) Is it ever morally correct to take the life of any living thing? If so, what are the circumstances? 4) Is it ever legally correct to take the life of any living thing? If so, what are the circumstances? 5) Is it ever legally correct to take the life of a person? If so, what are the circumstances? 6) How far should the law go to enforce individual morality? At what point does this become intrusion into one's right to privacy? 7) What are criteria one should use for deciding moral questions? Majority rule? Intuition? Reason? Scripture? Actually, there are many more questions than the seven produced above. I hope that this list makes it apparent to at least some of you how superficial the reasoning on this subject has been so far, and how unjustified most people's opinions (pro and con) are on this subject. ......utterly confused, but at least still trying---tfl
hamilton (03/12/83)
#R:ihuxl:-31000:uicsovax:22800005:000:758 uicsovax!hamilton Mar 11 18:55:00 1983 ***** uicsovax:net.women / alice!alb / 3:55 pm Mar 4, 1983 Well, I replied to you (Roger Hardin) by mail, but since you decided to take this conversation to the net, I guess we should tell the others what we're talking about. In my mail to you, I referred to a fetus inside a mommy as a VIRTUAL parasite (I did *NOT* call it an outright parasite) If you look at the definition of a parasite, something that lives off of something else, you will see my point. A fetus DOES live off the mother. Take the mother away and the fetus is dead. Before you go blasting my ideas and trying to embarass me publicly, why not think first? Adam (P.S. Just because my address is alice!alb doesn't make my name Alice. Where did you come up with that?!) ----------
hamilton (03/12/83)
#R:ihuxl:-31000:uicsovax:22800006:000:552
uicsovax!hamilton Mar 11 19:08:00 1983
i just now looked at 2 definitions of parasite, and both specify that
the parasite is either of a different "form" (presumably "species")
than the host, or that nothing useful is given in return. you might
dispute the "usefulness" of propagating YOUR genes (hell, i might even
agree with you), but if the idea you wanted to express was simply the
total dependence of fetus upon mother, you chose a highly loaded phrase
for it. c'mon; if you play with matches, don't be surprized by the fire.
wayne ({decvax,ucbvax}!pur-ee!uiucdcs!uicsovax!)hamiltonsilver@csu-cs.UUCP (07/09/83)
"We've found that abortion itself is a traumatic experience, and that it can cause psychological suffering years down the road." As someone who is very close to someone who has both aborted an unwanted pregnancy, and given up a child for adoption, let me tell you: Neither option is a picnic, but the latter is FAR, FAR WORSE! especially years later. Check it out yourself. Attend, say, a meeting of Concerned United Birthparents (CUB). Sorry to post on the subject, but scared to sit idly by, Alan Silverstein
turner@ucbesvax.UUCP (02/18/84)
Human life, in the moral sense, has been shown to begin at about 15.83 microseconds after the first sperm cell penetrates the cell wall of the ovum. After that, abortion is First Degree Murder. We discovered this fact by using Science. --- Michael Turner (ucbvax!ucbesvax.turner)
saquigley@watmath.UUCP (Sophie Quigley) (02/18/84)
Part 3
Preliminary warnings:
1 In what will follow, adjectives such as "reasonable",
"unreasonable", "emotional", "logical" will be used in
their proper sense, i.e without the value judgements
that are usually associated with them; thus by calling
a point of view unreasonable, I will not be meaning
that this point of view should not be listened to, or
that people who hold that point of view are fools or
crazy, but simply pointing out that this view was
obtained by means other than reasoning.
2 I do not claim to have an unbiased point of view on the
matter. I have a very biased point of view in the
matter simply because I am a woman, and the possibility
of ever needing an abortion is something which is ever
present, especially since, for personal reasons, the
method of birth control that I practise is not the
"safest" (in terms of avoiding pregnancy) one available
in the world. Therefore I have a very vested interest
in the whole topic. I believe that every woman should
be allowed to have an abortion if she so desires, so
flamers who have the same opinion as me can save their
energy and aim their flame-throwers at somebody else.
I have already made my position clear in my previous
article, but felt that it needed to be clarified again.
From now on, I will not bother.
First I will look at things from the pro-life point of
view. Pro-life people are those who will have answered "no"
to all my questions, even to the one concerning the right of
a woman that gets pregnant as as result of rape, to get an
abortion, even though going through with the pregnancy may
cause this woman deep pain (as I believe would happen in
most of these cases probably). This position comes from the
belief that no amount of suffering that would be avoided by
an abortion justifies the killing of a fetus, because kil-
ling a fetus is more immoral than forcing someone to suffer.
Here are what I believe to be two different pro-life
view of fetuses: The first one is that fetuses are persons
(defined as being of the human race + having some form of
consciousness or "soul") from the moment of conception and
therefore deserve all rights accorded to other persons, the
most important of which is the right to life.
The second is that we do not know whether the fetus is a
person, so in absence of evidence of the contrary, we must
assume the worst (or best depending on the point of view)
and treat the fetus as a human being so as not to commit the
mistake of killing a person. A variant of this view is
that, at some point in the development of the fetus, the
fetus gains "consciousness" (or a "soul") and thus becomes a
person. That point is not known, (although judging from
some pro-life posters I have seen, the appearance of a soul
seems to be closely related to the development of the feet
of the fetus :-) ), so in doubt again, we must assume the
worst.
These two beliefs are put to test when facing the ques-
tion of whether abortion should be allowable to save the
life of the mother. This question is very easily answered
by people of the second persuasion: it is one life against
another, we know the mother is a person, we are not sure
about whether the fetus is, so clearly it makes more sense
to save the mother rather than the fetus.
For people adhering to the first belief, the answer is
not so clear: we have two lives of equal value. How do we
decide which one to choose? the only way to answer this
question fairly is by tossing a coin, but nobody will do
that. What will probably happen is that other values will
come into play. The people making the decision probably
know the mother already, so based on this will decide (hope-
fully) to save the mother. There are many other decision-
making processes, which are more or less horrible and which
I will not mention. But no matter what the decision is,
unless it is done completely at random, making a decision on
such a matter implies deciding that one person deserves to
live more than another, i.e that not all human lives are
equal. This is a very disturbing realisation. We will see
why later.
I personally regard the second view of a fetus as the
more reasonable of the two, as the first one is based on
faith while the second one is simply based on our current
knowledge. I believe that most pro-life people, except for
those who have faith in some kind of doctrine telling them
that there is a soul from the moment of conception on, prob-
ably adhere to the second belief. The problem with adhering
with the second view is that it forces us to face reality,
which is uncertainty about the nature of the fetus. This
approach opens up the possibility that we might be wrong and
that one day we will be proved wrong (although that is very
unlikely since it is so hard to determine the existence or
even define the meaning of the existence of a soul). How-
ever this also introduces the idea that there might be a
hierarchy of beings more or less human, more or less cons-
cious, and this hierarchy might end up placing other "lower"
animals on an equal or higher level than fetuses.
This notion profoundly disturbs many of our commonly
held views of the supremacy of the human race and touches
very taboo subjects as it points out amongst other things
the insignificance of human lives: we were all at one point
embryos, which could be "less" than animals. This defin-
itely opens up too many cans of worms, which is why many
pro-life people will decide to stick to the first view of
fetuses, which is a much simpler one. However, it is one
for which there is no supporting evidence, so must be
defended through non-reasonable means, which is exactly what
most pro-life groups (I've seen or heard) are doing.
Notice however that the logical conclusion of these two
views is that most pro-lifers, except those who would toss
coins in the above example, will somehow arrive at the con-
clusion that some human lives are "worth" more than others.
(Non-prolifers, i.e. anybody who would agree to let one
woman have an abortion, have already arrived at the conclu-
sion that some lives are worth less than other things.) Now,
this is a disturbing concept because it implies that lives
can be given values like other things, such as suffering,
can be given a value, therefore the value of life can be
compared with the value of not suffering and one declared
more worthy than the other. The pro-life solution is to
simply give a much higher value to life than to other desir-
able things. The extreme pro-choice position is to give a
much higher value to the freedom of the mother to have con-
trol of her body than to the life of fetuses.
There are many different value systems for pro-choice
and other people than the two just mentioned and I will look
at them later on. It is important to recognise that reason
cannot go further than this level. At this level values are
assigned for many different emotional reasons, most of which
depend greatly on which images stir us more: for some, it is
the image of a fetus being torn to shreds, for others it is
the image of mothers and children separated by adoption, for
others it is the image of women dying from illegal abortions
(my worst image) or of unloved and battered children of
unhappy mothers. The fact is that most people decide on
their values for emotional reasons. The only exceptions to
these are people who decide what their values are based on
what they have been told (by god, or someone else) that
these values should be. These people have chosen that is is
of value to relinquish responsibility for their choice of
values.
So we are in the following very sticky situation: We
have different people living together. They have many dif-
ferent ways of looking at very important issues. None of
the values they are basing their point of view from on such
topics can be defended logically, yet some decision must be
made that will be "good", for everybody, but what is "good"?
we all have different definitions of it. I place the
avoidance of suffering very close to the top of my value
list, so my definition of the best solution would be one
which would minimise all the suffering that is involved in
this process: this would involve minimising the suffering
that pro-life people feel when they think of embryos being
torn up, as well as the suffering of women who find
themselves pregnant with a child they do not want. However
pro-lifers might not be interested the least bit about their
own suffering since eliminating suffering might not be as
high on their priority list of things to get done as making
sure that as many embryos as possible live (unless it is
suffering they are concerned about, but they simply believe
that the suffering of an embryo being aborted is greater
than any other suffering that will be incurred by its life).
Therefore if anybody is to make any decision on this matter
that will affect others (and as the nature of this matter is
about making decisions that will affect others, they will)
they will have to remember that they will be imposing their
value system on others. The value system which has been
imposed upon us by the present laws is that it is more
important for all people to have a say in this matter rather
for all women to be allowed to completely control the course
of their pregnancies or for all fetuses to have the right to
live. This value system is called "democracy". Again if
one goes to its roots, one will find that it is based on
emotions about what is right.
Having clarified all this, I will turn my attention
towards people who have the same emotional justification for
their values as I do, these are the non-prolife people who
have decided that life is not always on top of their value
system. I am doing this not as a conscious decision to snub
prolifers, but rather simply because I know that our emo-
tional value backgrounds are completely irreconcilable, and
therefore our goals will probably be too (except if we both
artificially push "democracy" to the top of our priority
list, which we will not do in this case, but other people
will do and have already done for us in making laws on this
matter). So from now on, I will be assuming that life of
embryos does not always have the greatest "value", but that
it does have some value. Note that this eliminates certain
pro-choice points of view too: those that are based
entirely on the belief that embryos are just little blobs of
cells throughout pregnancy, and whose lives are worth about
the same as any fly's.
I realise that I might have unfairly represented pro-
life people. I would welcome any corrections to what I have
said on them.
Stay tuned for more....
Sophie Quigley
watmath!saquigleysaquigley@watmath.UUCP (Sophie Quigley) (02/20/84)
Abortion: Part 4
In the last article, I concentrated my attention on fetuses in
the abortion debate. In this one I will look mainly at mothers.
Some people would allow women who get pregnant as a result of
rape to have abortions if they so desire but not other women. Let us
look at the possible motives for such a decision:
1 - A fetus conceived from an act of rape is less human than
another fetus, or a fetus conceived in such a way can be killed to
"pay for its father's crime" or something equivalent. These positions
are clearly non-sensical. A rapist's fetus is in no way responsible
for its father's crime, and it would be criminal to punish the father
via his fetus. Therefore the reason for allowing the mother of this
fetus is not related to the nature of this fetus, but to the nature of
the mother.
2 - A woman who has been raped is more likely to suffer extremely
from the rape, and the existence of this fetus would be a daily rem-
inder of this horrible experience. The child born will very likely be
given up for adoption or grow up unloved. While adopted children do
not necessarily end up suffering too much because of this fact, it
still remains that they are at a disadvantage from the moment of their
birth because of our society's emphasis on the importance of "blood"
relations, and because of the fact that no matter how unimportant it
might be, it is never nice to feel unwanted by one's own parents.
While it is probably true that the mother and child in a rape
conception have a greater chance of suffering as a result of this
rape, suffering is not limited to women who have been raped. It is
quite conceivable that a raped woman might suffer less than other
women as a result of being pregnant. For example, it is quite common
for wife-batterers to start battering their wives as they are pregnant
(why this is so, I do not know); continuing such a pregnancy would
make the wife and child even more vulnerable to battering as a wife
usually depends more on her husband the more children she has, since
she needs more economic help to support herself and the children then
she would just to support herself; For this reason, she may decide to
stay with him, something she would not have done if it hadn't been for
the existence of the child; the suffering will probably not be lim-
ited to the mother: in many wife-battering situations, children also
end up being battered (by either the father or the mother).
Therefore, if the reason for allowing abortions to women who have
been raped is to alleviate hers and the child's suffering, we must, if
we want to be fair, allow it to other women who would also suffer "as
much" from their pregnancy. This involves being able to assess
suffering. Suffering, however is highly subjective, and even if it
wasn't and it was possible to determine a measure of suffering, this
could only be done with present suffering. Some of the suffering con-
sidered in making a decision as to whether or not one should have an
abortion is actually present such as the physical and emotional and
economical discomforts of being pregnant, but most of the suffering
being assessed is future suffering, what effect the child's presence
will have on our lives as well as what effect our rejection partial or
total, physical or emotional of that child will have on him/her. This
is something which can only be guessed, and the persons who can guess
best are the ones directly involved: the mother, the child, and more
remotely the father, or the families of the parents.
The idea of letting people so closely involved determine what
amount of suffering is tolerable for them repels many people because
they are afraid that this concept might be abused, and that women
might decide on the whim of the moment not to have a child, even
though the presence of that child would not disturb them very much,
and use the excuse that only they know how much they will suffer, to
get rid of it.
While this is a very valid point theoretically, and while there
might actually be cases where this might happen, the reality is that
abortions are not trivial processes emotionally and involve a fair
amount of suffering from the mother's part (and hopefully as little as
possible from the fetus' part). To find out about this, one only
needs to ask women who have gone through one.
Some of this suffering is brought upon by society's insistence on
inducing guilt on a mother who has decided that having an abortion is
the best solution for herself, but some of it also seems to be simply
caused by the abortion itself in the sense that the mother feels a
real loss when she is not pregnant anymore and sometimes goes into a
period of mourning. The loss felt varies greatly with each woman, but
for most it is definitely there. Not only is the loss felt after the
abortion, but many women (most of the ones I know) realise before the
abortion, or before even getting pregnant that they would feel such a
loss. Most women I know who support abortion on demand also feel that
even though their position is clear on their right to have an abortion
is they so desire, they are not as sure about whether they would be
able to stand such a loss if they were faced with having to make that
decision themselves. I do not have any data on this, but my impres-
sion is that most women do realise beforehand that some amount of
suffering is involved in having an abortion, and do make their deci-
sions with this knowledge in mind.
This point will be fairly obvious to most women, I believe, but
it is something which many men are not aware of, this is why it needs
to be made. Many people like to depict women choosing to have abor-
tions as heartless creatures who have no concern for the suffering of
others. Of course, some are like that, but my feeling about it is
that most of these women do have some concern over others' suffering,
but it is a more complex concern than the simple "I will not kill
because that's bad" concern that the people criticising them have.
The only evidence I have supporting this point of view is from the
people I have known or heard of. It is not good enough to be "signi-
ficant" in a statistical sense, but the evidence that has been put
forth so far by people disagreeing with me on the matter has been even
less significant: none of them ever bothered speaking to the women
they were accusing of being insensitive.
To recapitulate what has just been said, if women who are raped
are allowed abortions so as to alleviate some of their suffering, oth-
ers who would also suffer should also be allowed abortions. Therefore
if abortions are allowed only to women who have been raped, the reason
for allowing such abortion must be other than to alleviate their
suffering. It is those reasons that I will analyse in the next
chapter.
Sophie Quigley
watmath!saquigleysaquigley@watmath.UUCP (Sophie Quigley) (02/20/84)
As this topic looks like it is becoming a full-fledged discussion of abortion, and as there are so many things that need to be discussed to get a complete grasp of the topic, I have decided to make an outline of how I intend to conduct the rest of this monologue. Here it is. I have finished topic 3. This outline may change as I think of more things that need to be said. Abortion. 1 - preliminaries 2 - Fetuses, ethical systems and the pro-life view. 3 - Suffering and the pro-choice view. 4 - sex, responsability, punishment and sexism. 5 - Indirect effects of the abortion issues: - women's health - women's role in society. 6 - Abortion, family and society. 7 - Additional topics: - abortion of "defective" fetuses. 8 - addendum: - a personnal view of the meaning of responsability.
dolan@ihnp1.UUCP (Mike Dolan) (02/21/84)
Sophie, In response to your series of articles on abortion: It is evident that you have spent a lot of time trying to understand the various aspects of the issue. But before you get too far into the remainder of your series, please respond to this question. Given that a child is a human being at birth, what reason is there to consider it not to be a human being before birth? To say that a child is not a human being at one point, and is at another requires that ability to show that somehow this "humanness" was added. What is there which adds this humanness? Is it the birth process itself? If so, why do we consider caesarean born children to be human? Is it the environment of the womb? The womb is a sophisticated life support system that has yet to be equaled by modern science. The womb provides food, oxygen, protection, warmth, and waste removal. If we were to declare that being yet attached to the life support system of the womb made a child not human, why should we not say that anyone in a hospital with tubes attached all over for life support is not human either? Is it human form? Then what is human form? Your form right now is not that which you had when you were newborn. Moreover, to declare form to be the deciding factor would be to declare that anyone born without arms or legs to be non-human. Is it brain waves? Recognizably human brain waves have been detected in utero ten weeks after conception. And that was with the level of sophistication of equipment available five years ago. With more sophisticated equipment it is probable that such brain waves could be detected earlier. How much earlier? I don't know. But if brain waves are the determining factor, abortion after at most ten weeks would be the killing of a human being. You see, Sophie, the arguments of those against abortion are not emotional, though there are certainly strong emotions on both sides of the issue. Our argument is the fundamental one that the unborn child is a human being. A child is a human being at birth, and there is nothing to suggest some sort of nonhumanness-to-humanness change prior to birth. Therefore, an unborn child is entitled to the same human rights as any of the rest of us. I am not allowed to kill you for the sake of some convenience on my part. If you threaten my physical life, our society's laws of self-defense apply and allow me to kill you. In the same way, I cannot take the life of an unborn child for the sake of my convenience unless it is threatening my physical life. Does that lead to a lot of other problems? You bet it does! And our society is learning to handle them. There are special places that an unwed pregnant teenager can go if she needs a loving, caring place to live while she bears her baby. These places can remove the feeling of stigma that our society places on such women. And there are other counseling, adoption, and medical services being provided to help a woman through the trauma of rape, incest, etc. These services are the ones that need to be encouraged and supported. But killing a baby does not solve a problem, it only compounds it. So please, Sophie, before you generalize the issue of abortion as an emotional one, consider the very rational question that I have posed. If an unborn child is non-human, what is it that makes it a human being at birth? Have a Good Day, Mike Dolan AT&T Bell Laboratories - Naperville, IL 60566 (312)979-6767 ihnp4!ihnp1!dolan
saquigley@watmath.UUCP (Sophie Quigley) (02/22/84)
.PP Before answering your question, let me say that I believe you misinterpreted what I have said about the role of emotions in this whole topic. What I pointed out was that the ethical system that each person, (no matter which side they are on) uses to define what is "right" is based on emotions, some believe that it is a worst crime to kill something which might be human, others believe that the repercussions of not killing it might be worse than the actual killing. Which attitude we choose to base our opinions are based on emotions. By saying this I am not ACCUSING any side of being emotional, I am just noting that this topic has an emotional basis, and this fact should be acknowledged. .PP I did say, however, that the pro-choice view needs to resort to emotions more than the other side, (which might be more honest in a way) and the reason for this is very simple: the direct "wrong" done in an abortion lasts a relatively short time: from the pregnancy to the abortion + the time the people involved in it feel guilt and sorrow over it, while the "wrong" done by not having an abortion lasts much longer: at least the whole pregnancy + the life of the child and parents. (The indirect effects, i.e the effects on society as a whole last the same amount of time for each side). Therefore there is a lot more material to work on from the pro-choice point of view than from the pro-life, especially since the victims in the pro-life case are not around any more, while the victims in the pro-life are. .PP The pro-life side has done what it can to use all that they have in their favour, from the abortionists nightmares to the mothers regrets, but they mainly have two strong arguments: the first being that killing is horrible, the second that the method of thinking that leads to the acceptance of such killing is dangerous. The public at large is usually not as interested in the second argument, so the first one is the one that they have to use to gain "votes", and it happens that this argument is emotional. The pro-life movement has realised all this so to counteract the other side's arguments, they need to make their pitch stronger which leads to the high level of emotionality that they are often accused of having. .PP Your question is a very good one, and it is the best question that pro-life people can ask pro-choice people because it is the hardest to answer for many reasons: the first one is that in order to answer it, we first need to define the concept of "person". This is something that has been attempted by many people but for which there are not really any satisfactory answers. .PP The only answers that can be done are all arbitrary, development of brain cells, etc and are very dangerous if they are defined in non-physiological terms since these definitions imply that other people which are now considered persons, can possibly end up not being persons any more, so discussing this implies discussing the ethical issues of euthanasia and infanticide. I will talk about infanticide later on and its relation to abortion, so I will answer your question indirectly, although I don't believe you will be satisfied with my answers, in which case we should continue our discussion then. I don't know whether I am up to talking about euthanasia, but I guess I will have to since I commited myself to writing something on "deformed" embryos. .PP However, if you will notice, the rest of the discussion is based on the premise that accepting abortion is accepting that it might at times be better to kill what might be a person rather than letting that person live. Part of the pro-choice movement is based on this premise, the other part base their decisions on scientific definitions of personhood. I, along with many people on the pro-choice side, believe that birth is a good delimitation of when it stops being acceptable to kill someone. This opinion is not based on the belief that personhood begins magically at birth, but rather on the belief that many of the arguments for abortion loose their strength at birth, and that the repercussions of extending those arguments after birth are too dangerous to live with. I will expand on this when I talk about infanticide. .PP Are you satisfied with this tempory non-answer? .nf Sophie Quigley watmath!saquigley .if
saquigley@watmath.UUCP (Sophie Quigley) (02/22/84)
Mike Dolan asks: If an unborn child is non-human, what is it that makes it a human being at birth? This is the question I tried answering in my previous posting. I am not satisfied with the answer I just gave (+ the fact that I didn't manage to format my answer before it got posted) Let me answer it a bit more directly: birth does not make a child more "human", it changes its status in society in that it is not a direct depen- dant on its mother. If the argument in favor of abortion at any time in the development of the fetus is that fetuses are not human before birth, but are after birth, the argument is flawed, as you pointed out. However the arguments in favor of abortion at any time before birth are not based on the belief that fetuses magically gain personhood at birth, but on the belief that it is better in certain curcumstances to kill a fetus rather than carry the pregnancy through. There is a branch in the pro-choice movement which believes that abortions should be allowed depending on the development of the fetus. This branch believes that there is a reasonable cutoff time where mistakes can be minimised. Science gives a more or less satisfactory answer to this question. I am not satisfied with it. Sophie Quigley watmath!saquigley
bane@umcp-cs.UUCP (02/23/84)
There is another side to this "Let's be non-emotional and rational
about this" argument. The point is conceded that there is nothing about
the birth process that causes a fetus to suddenly become a human being.
The point that the degree of life support provided by the mother is not
relevant is also conceded.
However, this does NOT mean that the fetus is a human being all the
way back to conception. As a reductio ad absurdium example, take the case
of identical twins. At conception, there was one cell which divided into
two. Through some not-well understood mechanism, those two cells separated
and became two individuals. Does this mean there was one human being at
conception, and two afterwards, whereas if those cells hadn't separated,
there would have still been only one? This can, of course be extended to
the cases of identical triplets and quadruplets, with appropriate extensions
in confusion.
If both these "rational" arguments are acceptable, all we can conclude is
that there must be a line somewhere between conception and birth where
"humanity" starts. I don't know where that line is, I don't think anyone
else does, and I don't think defining such a point in law is a good idea.
No flames, please; this is all I have ever had to say on this subject.
--
Arpa: bane.umcp-cs@CSNet-relay
Uucp:...{allegra,seismo}!umcp-cs!banetwltims@watmath.UUCP (Tracy Tims) (02/23/84)
"If both these "rational" arguments are acceptable, all we can conclude
is that there must be a line somewhere between conception and birth
where "humanity" starts. I don't know where that line is, I don't
think anyone else does, and I don't think defining such a point in
law is a good idea."
umcp-cs!bane
I personally suspect that "humanity" starts after birth. In that case, birth
is the last point I would say the potential_human isn't human, since it's hard
to tell at which point following it becomes so.
Tracy Tims {linus,allegra,decvax,utcsrgv}!watmath!twltims
The University of Waterloo, 519-885-1211 x2730lipman@decwrl.UUCP (02/25/84)
From: squirt::arndt
Greetings everyone. I have been following with interest the continuing
dialogue about abortion. I am moved to make an observation.
It just seems to me to be a self evident proposition that human "life"
begins at conception and ends with death. Even those first few cells
ARE human and ARE life. That is, they are not a group of dog or cat
cells and they are not non-living. (Please note that I am NOT addressing
or appealing to any concept of "soul" or "quality of that life" used
to define what is or is not HUMAN.) We may CALL those cells anything
we wish, fetus, blob, baby, it, or whatever - but the above status
("human life") remains true.
Correct me if I am wrong, but abortion STOPS (is Kills too strong?) that
life. It then becomes DEAD, RIGHT?
To restate a little if I may, it seems to me that human life is a continuum
from conception to death. I have never heard, I think, an argument FOR
abortion that has been consistantly applied to ALL (as it seems it must
be to remain logical) human life along the continuum.
For example:
-
[A
(You realize of course that ken@ihuxq.UUCP (ken perlow) (02/27/84)
--
Decwrl!lipman argues that human life begins at conception because
the fertilized egg is, at this point, a human cell. Maybe it is,
but so is a teratoma. (A teratoma is a kind of cancer which has
the cell differentiation that occurs in embryos, but it is wild and
disorganized.) Should the "right to life" apply to teratomas?
They are potential human beings, too. Well, this is the sort of
logic you can get into if you don't consider viability of the fetus.
It's pretty well established that during the 1st trimester the fetus
has not evolved (remember "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny"?) past
a reptilian stage. Thus, abortion during the 1st trimester can be
compared to killing a snake. A snake with the potential to be a
human being, to be sure. But if you get into this "potential"
nonsense, then birth control becomes murder.
As a man, I can't really understand what it means to get pregnant.
I have to make an analogy to cancer (I am told there is some bio-
chemical similarity). I like having the right to remove a
cancer, even a benign one that might for some strange reason do me
good. This is the only posting I'll do on this subject, in the
interest of sanity, but I'll continue by mail with anyone who feels
the need to. I'm pro-choice AND I VOTE!
--
*** ***
JE MAINTIENDRAI ***** *****
****** ****** 27 Feb 84 [8 Ventose An CXCII]
ken perlow ***** *****
(312)979-7261 ** ** ** **
..ihnp4!ihuxq!ken *** ***pc@hplabsb.UUCP (Patricia Collins) (02/27/84)
There are many circumstances under which the US condones/promotes killing others if there is a threat to life/liberty/pursuit of happiness. We go to war over differences in ideology (declared or otherwise), we allow handguns (with no other useful purpose than picking off humans), we allow people to "defend their castles" with guns, knives, etc. Abortion has been a protected right for the same reasons. Before the 1920s, it was almost unheard of for an infant to survive its first year if it was put into an orphanage. [TOUCHING, Ashley Montague) Was the father guilty of murder for passing off his obligation to care for the child? It is now clinically possible to remove a fetus from a woman's womb and place it in another womb (before some early date), and it is possible to remove a fetus and care for it in an artificial womb (incubator etc.)... after about 20 weeks. It is still the case that *most* fetuses will die if removed from a womb during a critical few months. Is this substantially different from the orphanage situation? Medical people are charged with the responsibility of saving lives and preserving health. Women who want abortions are not principally trying to kill someone; they are principally trying to preserve their right to life/liberty/pursuit of happiness by turning the intruder over to the authorities. I personally hope that it won't be long before the authorities can provide care for the mother AND the fetus which preserves their lives...and their rights. I, for one, will be grateful for the day when women and men can create children when they want them and can be guaranteed no child will be created by "accident" or by violence. Patricia Collins hplabs
hfavr@hogpd.UUCP (A.REED) (02/28/84)
squirt::arndt writes, QUOTE: It seems self-evident to me that even the first few cells after conception ARE human and ARE living. That is, they are not cat or dog cells, but genetically HUMAN. Also they are not non-living like a rock, but ARE alive. Ergo, whatever else abortion is it IS the stopping of human biological life. UNQUOTE. By this reasoning, cancer surgery is also the stopping of human life. Cancer cells are not cat or dog cells, but genetically HUMAN. Also they are not non-living like a rock, but ARE alive. I recall reading a satirical/futuristic novel some years ago (possibly by J. Sobran, although I am not sure about the author) in which, after the passage of a constitutional amendment protecting such forms of life, the attempt to remove a cancerous growth became a criminal conspiracy to commit murder. The protagonist encounters the still cancer-ridden would-be "murderer" in Yankee Stadium, which has been turned into a prison compound for such offenders. An alternative definition, originally proposed by Aristotle, is that human life is sapient life. It may still be an open question as to exactly when in development one becomes sapient, i. e. human, but at least we are sparmd the absurdity of an alleged equality of rights between a human being and a mindless cluster of cells.
preece@uicsl.UUCP (02/28/84)
#R:decwrl:-582300:uicsl:16400047:000:1580 uicsl!preece Feb 27 08:09:00 1984 I can't at the moment think of an argument in FAVOR of abortion that would not also apply to a three year old or a thirty three year old. ---------- I don't argue anything that doesn't apply equally to the fetus and the three year old. I argue against giving the fetus SPECIAL rights that the three year old doesn't have. A three year old in need of a kidney transplant or a blood transfusion cannot compel its mother to provide it, even if her failure to do so will lead to the child's death. We have an absolute right to control the use of our bodies. The fetus has no special right to the use of its mother's uterus. Suppose, for a moment, it were discovered that drinking three ounces of substance X would lead to shutting down the mother's end of the fetal oxygenation system. Would you ban consumption of X? I would argue that the individual has the right to decide what she wants to put into her body regardless of its effect on the fetus temporarily drawing on her facilities. If you abrogate that right you throw the door open for offspring to sue parents on the grounds they were injured by the mother's use of caffeine, tobacco, cannabis, aspirin, or whatever. If court or Congress could order a mother to provide space in her womb for her fetus, why could it not order another woman to provide space for someone else's fetus? Why could it not order a man to provide an arm to someone unfortunately born without one? The physical control of our bodies has got to be about as central a right as our system provides. scott preece ihnp4!uiucdcs!uicsl!preece
y7106@dalcs.UUCP (Rich Johnson) (02/28/84)
a
One comment and one comment only.
My mother worked in the emergency ward of a hospital in England during the
late 50's when abortion was illegal. She told me that much of the work that she
had to do was repairing messed up back street abortions. Wouldn't it be better
if untill we had some perfect way to decide if an abortion was to be performed
we declared them to be legal and let them be done properly in hospitals or
licenced, inspected clinics ????
Rich Johnsondaemon@decwrl.UUCP (02/29/84)
From: amber::chabot (Lisa Chabot)
Net etiquette says this topic should not have been started in this
newgroup. I've held back complaining for awhile, but I'm going to do so
now.
Please move this discussion about when human life begins to some more
appropriate newsgroup like net.philosophy or net.religion or net.politics.
When this topic is related to women, then it can have a place in net.women,
but my experience has shown when such a discussion moves defining when
humans begin it degenerates into a few closed minds calling each other
hypocrites and/or baby-killers.
Lisa Chabot
UUCP: ...{ decvax | allegra | ucbvax }!decwrl!rhea!amber!chabot
ARPA: ...decwrl!rhea!amber!chabot@{ Berkeley | SU-Shasta }
USFail: DEC, MR03-1/K20, 2 Iron Way, Marlboro, MA 01752
shadow: ...{ decvax | allegra | ucbvax }!decwrl!rhea!arden!chabotmazur@inmet.UUCP (03/04/84)
#R:decwrl:-582300:inmet:10900054:000:2007
inmet!mazur Feb 29 22:51:00 1984
The point about abortion that I was trying to make is that from a
rational viewpoint, it seems to me, it is nothing less than the
stopping of human biological life. And once a reason is allowed
to be used for the taking of that life, then that reason should be
good for any place along the continuum of biological life from the
moment of conception to whatever age before an otherwise "natural"
death.
It seems to me that we allow legal murder in the form of capital punishment.
According to your logic, that means that if we can justify taking a person's
life on the basis of his/her criminal actions, it won't be long before we
decide that shoplifting will be punishable by death :-).
Actually there are also several other instances where "unnatural" death may
seem a possible alternative. For example, children who are born with severe
birth defects. A program here, Miller's Court, recently had as it's subject
the case of parents who had decided not to prolong their newborn's life with
painful surgery. A clergyman heard of this decision and took the family
to court for custody. In this fake court setup, the jury decided to take
custody away from the parents.
There was also the scenario enacted in the movie "Whose Life Is It Anyways?",
where Richard Dreyfuss portrays a quadriplegic who chooses death as opposed to
the mechanical preservation of life. What about the fight of Karen Ann
Quinlan's parents to have their daughter removed from life support systems?
Abortion has nothing to do with any of this. This would exist even if
abortion was outlawed. In fact, even if abortions were outlawed, women
would still find ways to get them. You may find a burning saline solution
tough to stomach, but I find having abortions performed with a coat hanger
equally tough to stomach.
It would seem to me though, that with proper education and inexpensive,
easily obtained birth control, the need for abortion could be reduced.
Beth Mazur
{ima,harpo,esquire}!inmet!mazurholmes@dalcs.UUCP (Ray Holmes) (03/05/84)
[] squirt!arndt says: > It just seems to me to be a self evident proposition that human life > begins at conception and ends with death. Even those first few cells > ARE human and ARE life. That is, they are not a group of dog or cat > cells and they are not non-living. (Please note that I am NOT addressing > or appealing to any concept of "soul" or "quality of that life" used > to define what is or is not HUMAN.) We may CALL those cells anything > we wish, fetus, blob, baby, it, or whatever - but the above status > ("human life") remains true. > Correct me if I am wrong, but abortion STOPS (is Kills too strong?) that > life. It then becomes DEAD, RIGHT? Right on -- it is human and it is life and it did start from a few cells, but did it start from those few cells, or perhaps from some earlier cells? Does it end at STOPPING (or you seen to prefer death)? I am agast! I'm surrounded with death -- my hair, my skin, my brain cells, even an occasional tooth -- gasp! my mother had a tumor STOPPED (is Killed too strong?) (please note that I am NOT addressing or appealing to any concept of "soul" or "quality of life" use to determine what is or is not HUMAN.) I could go on (and on) but back to squirt!armdt: > To restate a little if I may, it seems to me that human life is a continuum > from conception to death. I have never heard, I think, an argument FOR > abortion that has been consistantly applied to ALL (as it seems it must > be to remain logical) human life along the continuum. One thread did you say? My feable recolections of biology say that cells divide, and divide again; a very fuzzy continuum I must say! I must agree with you however: I also have never heard, I think, an argument FOR any surgery that has been consistantly applied to ALL (is it realy logical, or are souls realy involved here) human life (collections of cells) along the fuzzy continuum. Ray P.S. I left out your example as I couldn't understand it. P.P.S. Please forgive the unorganized approach as I am composing this on the fly because I'm MAD.
lipman@decwrl.UUCP (03/09/84)
From: squirt::arndt
Greetings again. I was trying to send a message on this topic this
afternoon and I hit the wrong key. That sent it along before I was
finished. So here goes again.
The point about abortion that I was trying to make is that from a
rational viewpoint, it seems to me, it is nothing less than the stopping
of human biological life. And once a reason is allowed to be used for the
taking of that life, then that reason should be good for any place along
the continuum of biological life from the moment of conception to whatever
age before an otherwise "natural" death. Please let me attempt to explain.
You may recall that I stated that it seems self-evident to me that even the
first few cells after conception ARE human and ARE living. That is, they
are not cat or dog cells, but genetically HUMAN. Also they are not
non-living like a rock, but ARE alive. Ergo, whatever else abortion is
it IS the stopping of human biological life.
I can't at the moment think of an argument in FAVOR of abortion that
would not also apply to a three year old or a thirty three year old.
For example:
-unwanted, unloved, doesn't that apply to bag ladies or some little kids?
or you or me at times. Is it really a solution to kill me if you don't
want me? If it is a solution then let's be honest and kill ANYONE who
we don't want and gets in our way.
(Remember now, I'm taking the position that there is no difference
biologically between the first few cells and the old man. Those that
favor abortion and object to killing "born" children for the reasons
they give for killing "unborn" children must posit some difference.
But what difference could there be? A "soul"? Prove it. And isn't
that a religious issue? But I don't hear pro-abortion people give
religious reasons for abortion. Could size be a difference. But then
would that be like saying tall/bigger makes more human? At that
extra cell would a blob, it, fetus, become human? Or put another
way, at what tick of the clock does non-human become human? Location?
Is a fetus not human because it is inside a womb? It seems to me that
it is still biologically human. How does it by changing location
"being born" become worthy of biological life? What about when it
is half in and half out of a woman's body? Can't survive on it's own?
But then neither can you or I. We all need nurishment. Can a newborn
survive on it's own? If you could kill a biological human a few hours
ago, why not now after it's born? Does many hours make the needed
difference? That is, in the first trimester? Again, then at what tick
of the clock does it become wrong to kill biological human life? Why
is nine months the line? A few cells are only potentially human?
They ARE biologically human and what people are really saying here is
they are not a given age. The few cells are certainly not potentially
alive. And remember, they are not cat or dog cell, but genetically
contain everything needed to describe the human species. A three year
old is potentially thirty three and we are all potentially dead. Of
course we are really not talking about a few cells when we talk about
abortion. At the time most women find out they are pregnant and go
ahead with abortions "it" looks very human. So much so that the
doctor must put "it" together like a jigsaw puzzle when he's done
in order to make sure nothing was left behind. He counts the arms
and legs, etc. With the use of saline solution the mother can
sometimes feel "it" kick and squirm as "it" burns to death. Sorry,
but it's true. So what IS the difference between a fetus and an old
man? Maybe a fetus doesn't know so much. But how do you tell when
biological human life passes the exam? I went to school with some . . .
I think the only things that come close-but don't make it- ane that
the fetus can't speak up for itself and we are not used to seeing
them around break dancing.)
- Back to reasons why an abortion is ok.
- It's my body or choice reason. I've never heard a woman, though I
supose there may be a few, say I want an abortion because I don't want
the fetus inside my body. That is , it would be ok if it were in a dish
or something. So control of my body must mean I don't want the fetus
because it is a fetus or potential baby. But why can't a three year
old be a drain on my body or a cramp on my style. I've been up late
at night with a sick baby, why couldn't I have killed it and gone back
to sleep? Again, where is the difference between a fetus and a baby?
More reasons that are no reasons for abortion. There is a socially
acceptable way to get rid of the body and I don't have to actually do
it myself.
is about enough for now.
Somebody pleeae give me a logical reason for not taking human life other
than self defense. A mother killing her unborn child is not self defense
unless her life is in danger, right? Not just because the kid will be a
pain. The value of a life is another life I would think. So it would
take another life on the other side of the scale to balance out.
Abortion is the modern way to play the game of "would you kill a chinaman
on the other side of the world for some amount of money if all you had to
do was push a button". If you say yes, then why couldn't the chinaman kill
you? If you won't allow that then you must find some way to show the
chinaman is not really the same as you- human.
Think of all the world problems we could solve if we could extend abortion
to all biological human life. Tell me why we should not.
I eagerly await instruction. :-)
Kenjhs@duke.UUCP (Joel Saltz) (02/05/85)
According to a pediatric neurosurgeon at Duke (Dr. Oakes) with whom I am taking a class, it is impossible to tell by physical exam whether an infant has a cerebral cortex until it is 3 or 4 months of age. (Some of the children that Dr. Oakes treats for a number of reasons are born or become decorticate ) A person without a cerebral cortex is incapable of language, and presumably of thought. Functioning of this part of the brain is vital to most voluntary activities engaged in by people and I'm pretty sure that you have to go at least as far as reptiles down the evolutionary ladder to find organisms without this portion of the brain. Development into a human being is clearly a gradual process. The above observation gives me reason to be skeptical about a claim that by aborting a fetus one is killing an organism capable of thought. (Of course people can oppose abortions on other grounds) Joel Saltz
muffy@lll-crg.ARPA (Muffy Barkocy) (02/05/85)
I know, I know. Abortion topics belong in net.abortion, not
net.women. However, I would like to request a discussion of
the *effects* of abortion, rather than more fairly useless
arguing about the morality or legality of it. From what
I've read, net.abortion might not be the place for this,
thus the posting to net.women as well.
As for these "effects" I mention, I'm thinking about
physical, mental, emotional, and societal.
(Did I leave anything out? if so, please mention it).
This would be discussion of such things as: given a woman who
has had an abortion, how often does she tell family, friends,
etc about this? How many women have serious emotional problems
due to the decision to have the abortion?
(Just to make myself clear, I'm not asking for things about
all the bad effects of abortion are, nor aall the good effects.
I'd like to see some of both. Since I'm in favor of it, I
would certainly not want to think that there were only bad ones.)
Muffy