merrill@gigi.DEC (Rick GIGI::Merrill DECRITE) (07/20/84)
<Dick Dunn (sic'em line-bug)> Religion should be reflected in your life and your life should be affected by your religious beliefs. Hence abortion (LIFE VS. CHOICE) SHOULD be discussed in net.religion with net.abortion used for the clinical aspects, specific instances, advice and requests for same. Ms.Ferraro gave the only reason that I could accept for choosing toterminate a pregnance: the result of a rape. What we need to do is to educate women who don't already know that a life is important. What DO different religions teach about the value,importance,rights of egg, cystoblast, embryo, fetus, infant, child, youth, adult, aged, dead? I must believe that God values all of them. Jesus had to tell people that little children were important and that "such were the kingdom of heaven." Catholicism teaches that all are equal "in the eyes of God." I think that is logical (even) since each stage comes from one before it. How do you feel about the use of fertilized eggs 0-14 days old for "experiments"? The "subjects" will be "sacrificed" after or during most of the "experiments." How would you feel about it if the egg/sperm were yours? I appreciate the knowledge mankind can learn from these tests, but we should approach doing such things with fear and trembling. If we "forget" to respect the rights of the "not-yet-alive" will we also (have we already) forget the rights of the "not-yet-dead"? Coma? 105? Rick
anthro@ut-ngp.UUCP (Michael Fischer) (07/23/84)
<> The issue of abortion in the USA and the world has a number of interesting problems to address. The opponents of abortion are centrally focused on extending the 'sanctity of life' notion that is our cultural heritage to various forms ranging from a single-cell to a near term fetus. The proponents of abortion (or at least 'choice') focus on extending the 'rights' of an individual to the removal of those forms from their body, either to extend their own life, or to promote a better quality of life. Although, in this country, the primary motivation of the opponents is based on religious dogma, they focus on the legal issue (and rightly so) of murder, on the premis that human life (the only kind we protect) begins at some arbitrary point. The interesting thing about this is that many of the proponents do not strongly oppose the aliveness, or even the humanness of the form, but argue the murder issue instead, based again on legal definitions, and supported by the extended rights arguement. On the other hand, many of the most vocal opponents are opposed to the support and training of many of the potential victems they attempt to rescue, content with the gifting of a life of hunger, sickness, and ignorance. The two views have interesting consequences. The continuing extention of the opponents' view is that the state require a pregnant human carry a human to term, and the state will support the new human until its death, since any other behavior would constitute the abortion of that new human. The state should also protect the new human from the influences of other humans that may curtail in some way the rights of that new human. This would entail that the state make a determination of what is best for the new human, and certainly not some arbitrary individual, such as the human that birthed the human. The extention of the proponents' view requires a determination of the arbitrary point at which one humans' rights over another end., or if not, that the bearing human can terminate the new human at any point in its life that is required to avoid infringing the rights of the bearing human. In the USA we have the advantage that to some degree the issue is, in a sense, a luxary, that is, for most it is not a 'make it or break it' issue. While I could quote statistics for other areas of the world, I'll restrict my comments to a part of the world where I have worked extensively, South Asia. Methods of abortion are well known in this area, although those methods are extreamly hazardous, usually involving blows, poisons, or dung applied appropriatly. In spite of the hazards, most affected individuals experience at least one abortion. Abortion is essential to the existance of the family, and the society. Without it, the family could not function economically, period. Without it the society would be replaced with a geograpical area infested with humans of very short life span, at least until enough died. I have never met a person who spent considerable time in the area who argued against population control, indeed christian organizations distribute literature, training films, and tapes to help instruct midwives about how to execute safer abortions(and births), a very humane act. The reason for this emphisis on abortion as a means of birth control stems, at least in Muslim based cultures, from a an injunction similar to that of some christians, a 'fruitful' type thing. The entire weight of birth control falls on the woman. Vasectomy was unthinkable (literally) to any man I discussed the issue with. Tubals were likewise an infringment of a mans rights. Pills were expensive, IUDs dangerous (ever walk 50km with a ruptured uterus). Condoms were available and expensive, but were extreamly distastful to men. The basic plan then awaits the event, where it falls on the woman to decide, alone and secretly (the husband must beat her if it becomes officially known that he knows). The point of this (apologetically) rambling is that both the quality of life and the right to life issues are subject to extream relative interpretation, consequently neither is probably 'right', and that the eventual solution will be a reflection of the particular arbitrary reality we exist in. Mike Fischer anthro@utngp
rrizzo@bbncca.ARPA (Ron Rizzo) (07/25/84)
Just a note to an unusually cogent article: there's a set of historical
essays published by a medical doctor a few years ago which was well-received
professionally which strongly suggest by various inferences from what is
known that infanticide (the killing of infants by their parents or relatives)
was VERY common and widespread throught Europe up & into the 19th century.
How far significant rates of infanticide continued throughout the 19th and
possibly into the 20th century is nearly impossible to investigate because
of (ahem!) various taboos. I don't remember what the book said about North
America.
Why might infanticide be an intrinsic part of family life for nearly all of
European history? Up to at least the mid- or late 18th century, life for
most Europeans was in fact "nasty, brutish, & short", much more like condi-
tions in the 3rd World than we care to acknowledge. Recent historical
studies repeatedly bear this out (a recent book on the social world behind
the French fairy tales collected by Charles Perrault paints a horrific pic-
ture of life for the vast majority of French up to the Revolution).
I'm sorry, but I can't remember the names of book or author. It was
reviewed 3 years ago in the New York Review of Books.
(This is a followup to Fischer's ("anthro") posting.)
Ron Rizzo