turner (02/11/83)
#N:ucbesvax:10300002:000:2031
ucbesvax!turner Feb 11 02:45:00 1983
As footnote to the ongoing abortion controversy, I have this to
add:
In some recently famine-stricken areas of the world (e.g. Somalia)
relief workers have noted that "triage" cases are often decided FOR
them - by the parents! "Triage", for those of you who are (blissfully)
unaware of the world predicament, is the strategy of abandoning hopeless
cases. (I simplify here.)
These parents choose to arrange for emergency food and treatment not
for the child in worst condition, but the child in BEST condition - the one
most likely to survive. This is a conscious and pragmatic choice, by all
reports. In many cases, it amounts to a (conscious and pragmatic) death
sentence for those children not so favored.
This tends to happen only when there is not enough food or medicine
for all; which is to say, life or death situations. But it also seems
to happen when the worst-off CAN be fed, but have suffered so much from
the effects of malnutrition as to be more-or-less permanently damaged.
My point? To the anti-abortion ("pro-life") contingent: stop
blathering about the Auschwitz of the abortion clinic: people having
been making unpleasant but necessary INDIVIDUAL (and FAMILY) decisions
about the survival of ALREADY-BORN children since antiquity. You want
to save some REAL lives? Send food and money to starving people.
No more hypothetical cases, if you please. If you are "pro-life",
I'd like to hear what you think about this concrete example, and what
your judgement is on these parents who "selfishly" don't want children
who are already mostly dead, and prefer to "murder" them.
I would also like to know what you think of the Auschwitz of
superpower intervention in third-world nations, which is what creates
the conditions of famine (NOT overpopulation.) Then, perhaps, we can
get around to such ethical side-issues as abortion, who can have one,
and who should pay.
Totally Fed Up,
Michael Turnersoreff (02/12/83)
Personally, I've never heard an abortion opponent say what they would do with the resulting unwanted children. Does anyone know the source of the saying that "A conservative's concern with children starts with conception and ends with birth."? -Jeffrey Soreff (hplabsb!soreff)