ark@alice.UUCP (Andrew Koenig) (08/16/85)
If a fetus has rights, then abortion is murder. There are other, more subtle implications. For example, smoking or drinking during pregnancy is clearly child abuse. So is failure to eat a balanced diet. Surely the state has as much interest in issues like this as it does in any other cases of child abuse. Lest you think I am being too picky, consider the recent events in Waukesha, Wisconsin, where a pregnant teen-ager is being imprisoned until she gives birth because the county thinks she might not seek proper pre-natal care and is therefore going to make sure she gets it whether she wants it or not. The word `abortion' does not appear anywhere in the article I read about this incident, nor was there any suggestion that she intended to seek one. She is more than eight months pregnant at present, so one appeals judge who heard her case said there was no point in ruling on it because she would be released in a few weeks anyway.
flink@umcp-cs.UUCP (Paul V. Torek) (08/23/85)
In article <4158@alice.UUCP> ark@alice.UUCP (Andrew Koenig) writes: >If a fetus has rights, then abortion is murder. >There are other, more subtle implications. For example, >smoking or drinking during pregnancy is clearly child abuse. >So is failure to eat a balanced diet. This is a straw man. Most people's moral intuitions would say that if you worsen someone's environment severely (e.g., polluting the air he breathes) you are harming him in a morally unacceptable way. But if you simply REFRAIN FROM *IMPROVING* his circumstances (e.g., not buying him a water purifier when he lives by a naturally polluted stream), you may be considered insensitive, but most people would not count this as abuse. (Note: I am giving you what I think most people would say, not necessarily what I agree with: I am interested in what a CONSISTENT "pro-lifer" MUST say.) The analogy is: if a woman drinks poison in order to worsen conditions for a fetus, this would be "child abuse"; but if she continues her habits of poor diet, smoking, etc., she is not *harming* the fetus but merely (merely?) *refusing to improve* its environment. In conclusion: Koenig's argument is a non-starter. --Paul V Torek, Iconbuster-In-Chief