stombaug@bgsuvax.UUCP (Wayne Stombaugh) (06/10/85)
Interesting case to "bring to life" - so to speak:
I have a close friend, who has the right to speak up in this area of
understandable naivety. He is the first born of 3 brothers. Under
reverent advice, his mother was advised strongly to "have an abortion",
soon before the date of expectancy. The doctor, in this case, basically
had a genuine concern for his mother, who because of extreme medical
difficulty will always bear children under life threatening circumstances.
(That is only to her own life unless an abortion is carried out)
Concerned basically for the life inside her body more than her own life,
she went against strong "medical advice" (3 times). I know I'm thankfull
she did , I know she is, and without a doubt I'm sure Chris (my friend)
is also! I realize this is one individual case , with it's own unique
set of factors and circumstance, and is diferent from thousands - millions
of abortions in question. But what if in any case you were the life in
question or (1 of the 3 brothers)?
I realize I'm in for interesting and thought provoking replys, but
I welcome them all and am curious as to your thoughts! One objection I
will not even address is " She " or " they cannot handle the
responsibility of raising a child!" Who had the big enough responsibility
to create the child?stombaug@bgsuvax.UUCP (06/11/85)
Interesting case to "bring to life" - so to speak:
I have a close friend, who has the right to speak up in this area of
understandable naivety. He is the first born of 3 brothers. Under
reverent advice, his mother was advised strongly to "have an abortion",
soon before the date of expectancy. The doctor, in this case, basically
had a genuine concern for his mother, who because of extreme medical
difficulty will always bear children under life threatening circumstances.
(That is only to her own life unless an abortion is carried out)
Concerned basically for the life inside her body more than her own life,
she went against strong "medical advice" (3 times). I know I'm thankfull
she did , I know she is, and without a doubt I'm sure Chris (my friend)
is also! I realize this is one individual case , with it's own unique
set of factors and circumstance, and is diferent from thousands - millions
of abortions in question. But what if in any case your life was the life
in question? Obviosly you wouldn't be alive (at least physically), but
your freedom to live and enjoy life the way it was ment to be would have
been altered and decided by another human being!
I realize I'm in for interesting and thought provoking replys, but
I welcome them all and am curious as to your thoughts! One objection I
will not even address is " She " or " they cannot handle the
responsibility of raising a child!" Who had the big enough responsibility
to create the child?sophie@mnetor.UUCP (Sophie Quigley) (06/17/85)
> But what if in any case your life was the life > in question? Obviosly you wouldn't be alive (at least physically), but > your freedom to live and enjoy life the way it was ment to be would have > been altered and decided by another human being! The logic in the above paragraph is a bit weird. Assuming that it made sense, here are a few remarks: What do you mean by "the way it was meant"? If you want to introduce religion in this whole business, I suggest you conduct your conversations in net.religion rather than here. Do you actually believe that (non-aborted) people's freedom to enjoy life is not altered by other people? -- Sophie Quigley {allegra|decvax|ihnp4|linus|watmath}!utzoo!mnetor!sophie
susan@vaxwaller.UUCP (Susan Finkelman) (06/20/85)
From Article 1495: > I realize I'm in for interesting and thought provoking replys, but > I welcome them all and am curious as to your thoughts! One objection I > will not even address is " She " or " they cannot handle the > responsibility of raising a child!" Who had the big enough responsibility > to create the child? !!!! WARNING: The following response is not an argument for or against abortion. Nor is it a statistically accurate or scientifically controlled study. !!!! I can't believe that you won't even listen to the issue of the ability to raise a child. Listen, just listen, for a second, before you decide that you can disregard such an objection (you, who will not ever face such a choice) I know seven women who have ended unwanted pregnancies by abortion. After your posting annoyed me, I used it as an excuse to get in touch, and I asked the following: When you were pregnant, did the biological father offer to help you have and raise the child? Yes - 1, No - 6 Was he for or against your abortion? For - 7 Against - 0. Did he have sufficient resources at the time that he would have been able to pay a decent amount of child support if you had had the baby? (it being difficult to get blood out of a turnip...) Yes - 2 No - 5 Did you have sufficient resources that you would have been able to have the baby alone and provide for it decently? Yes -1 No - 6 Money is indeed part of the convience issue. Have you ever considered raising a kid on welfare, which is what you do if you have no skills and no rich parents? You may not think it relevant, but some people do. And what about the men? You ask who was responsible? Well, in this culture it is often a young, unskilled woman. The men often disappear. I think it is both wrong and heartbreaking, but that is the way it is. Susan Finkelman, Varian, 2700 Mitchell Dr, Walnut Creek, Ca. 94598 {zehntel,amd,fortune,resonex,rtech}!varian!susan
jeand@ihlpg.UUCP (AMBAR @ Hmmmm...I'm not sure) (06/26/85)
> From Article 1495: > > > I realize I'm in for interesting and thought provoking replys, but > > I welcome them all and am curious as to your thoughts! One objection I > > will not even address is " She " or " they cannot handle the > > responsibility of raising a child!" Who had the big enough responsibility > > to create the child? > > I can't believe that you won't even listen to the issue of the ability > to raise a child. Listen, just listen, for a second, before you > decide that you can disregard such an objection... Come on. You didn't answer the question. Every freedom carries responsibility with it. If you want the freedom, you had best be ready for the responsibility. Jean Marie Diaz "When the going gets weird... the weird turn pro."
ark@alice.UUCP (Andrew Koenig) (06/26/85)
> Come on. You didn't answer the question. Every freedom carries > responsibility with it. If you want the freedom, you had best be ready for > the responsibility. Why? Because you said so? Does every freedom actually come with a built-in responsibility? If so, why? How do you know this? How can one determine the nature of the responsibility that you claim is implicit in a particular freedom? How does one know if the result of this determination is correct?
wine@homxa.UUCP (J.GORDON) (06/28/85)
>> From Article 1495: >> >> > I realize I'm in for interesting and thought provoking replys, but >> > I welcome them all and am curious as to your thoughts! One objection I >> > will not even address is " She " or " they cannot handle the >> > responsibility of raising a child!" Who had the big enough responsibility >> > to create the child? >> >> I can't believe that you won't even listen to the issue of the ability >> to raise a child. Listen, just listen, for a second, before you >> decide that you can disregard such an objection... > >Come on. You didn't answer the question. Every freedom carries >responsibility with it. If you want the freedom, you had best be ready for >the responsibility. > > Jean Marie Diaz Not every freedom carries a responsibility with it; how about my freedom to brush my teeth in the morning? The above "argument" begs the issue of who is to decide what responsibilities I should carry, or for that matter what constitutes a responsibility. As has been mentioned before, not everyone considers carrying a fetus to term and then paying $200,000+ to raise it and send it to school, not to mention putting in the time involved in raising it, a responsibility.
betsy@dartvax.UUCP (Betsy Hanes Perry) (06/28/85)
> > Come on. You didn't answer the question. Every freedom carries > responsibility with it. If you want the freedom, you had best be ready for > the responsibility. > > Jean Marie Diaz Could we have a little more reason and a little less rhetoric here? Examine the statement: "Every freedom entails responsibilities." Sounds nice; what does it mean? What responsibilities go with the freedom to breathe? What responsibilities go with the freedom to brush your hair? (Maybe keeping your combings off the common floor?) A more accurate statement would be "Each society grants freedoms and requires certain responsibilities in its turn. The responsibilities are often associated with the freedoms." Less catchy, but you can't have everything. In any case, I would agree that the freedom to fornicate carries with it the responsibility to provide against (or for) progeny. However, many of us don't consider it "irresponsible" to back-up the unreliable methods of contraception available with abortion. (I hold no moral book for people who don't bother with contraception and get caught.) So many pro-choicers *are* "prepared for the responsibility" of unwanted pregnancy; they are prepared to undergo a surgical procedure to deal with that responsibility. We can reasonably argue the morality of that decision in this forum, but calling abortions "irresponsible" without justifying the term is not a reasonable argument. Does anybody else out here think this forum's main purpose is justifying our collective paranoia about "the other side"? I mean, I still shiver at the thought of the guy who wanted to legislate women's behavior (smoking, drinking, etc.) during pregnancy, and I've heard equally appalling sweeping statements (children should be abortable until age three) made by people theoretically on 'my' side. -- Elizabeth Hanes Perry UUCP: {decvax |ihnp4 | linus| cornell}!dartvax!betsy CSNET: betsy@dartmouth ARPA: betsy%dartmouth@csnet-relay "Ooh, ick!" -- Penfold
tynor@gitpyr.UUCP (Steve Tynor) (06/29/85)
In article <983@homxa.UUCP> wine@homxa.UUCP (J.GORDON) writes: >..... As has been mentioned before, not everyone considers >carrying a fetus to term and then paying $200,000+ to raise it and send >it to school,not to mention putting in the time involved in raising it, >a responsibility. ...and there are some who feel that it is not there responsibility to raise their (living) child (ie. those who fail to pay child support). I guess it all comes down to a definition of when life begins. We all (I 'spose I shouldn't make such sweeping claims, but what the heck) agree that a 1 month old child has a right to live and that its parents or legal guardians have a responsibility to raise it. They don't have the right to kill it off if it becomes inconvienient (even burdensome). It seems to me that since the fetus of 1 minute and the child of one month differ only in the amount of time since conception. They share the same genetic information, and are thus the same person. If we arbitrarily claim that life magically starts at 3 months, what prevents us from claiming that life 'ends' at 150 years? Clearly there has never been anyone who has lived to 150 years, just as those who support abortion will point out that there has never been a a pre-3 month fetus that could survive outside its mother's womb. But what if we make strides in medicine and are able to keep people alive past 150 years? Do these people have rights? After all there's a law that says life ends at 150 years. How can you have rights if you're not alive? Similarly, what if the medical sciences advance to the point (and I'm sure it won't be long) where a pre-3month fetus can be kept alive and brought to term? Do we still have the right to kill it, just because a law says we do? (ah, you say, but if that's the case then the mother wouldn't have to bring it to term, she could off load to the artificial womb. I ask you, how different is this from adoption? ) The point is, it's dangerous to define such things as the beginning and end of life on the state of medical technology. Technology changes, but should ethics have to change with it? =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Semper ubi sub puri ubi. Steve Tynor Georgia Instutute of Technology ...{akgua, allegra, amd, harpo, hplabs, ihnp4, masscomp, ut-ngp, rlgvax, sb1, uf-cgrl, unmvax, ut-sally} !gatech!gitpyr!tynor -- Steve Tynor Georgia Insitute of Technology, Atlanta Georgia, 30332 ...!{akgua,allegra,amd,hplabs,ihnp4,masscomp,ut-ngp}!gatech!gitpyr!tynor
ark@alice.UUCP (Andrew Koenig) (06/30/85)
> It seems to me that since the fetus of 1 minute and the child of one > month differ only in the amount of time since conception. They > share the same genetic information, and are thus the same person. Does this mean you think that infants have the same rights as adults?
mag@whuxlm.UUCP (Gray Michael A) (06/30/85)
> Come on. You didn't answer the question. Every freedom carries > responsibility with it. If you want the freedom, you had best be ready for > the responsibility. > > Jean Marie Diaz I've heard this unsupported assertion all over the place, and I have no idea why people keep on saying it. Please tell me: 1) What is your evidence that every freedom possesses a corresponding responsibility? 2) Why should a freedom be so linked? Please avoid answers and examples such as, "Freedom to drive carries a corresponding responsibility to do so responsibly." They are not applicable, and the freedom and the responsibility just mentioned are coincidental, not logically linked. In the case being argued in this newsgroup, people are saying things like, "Freedom to engage in sexual intercourse carries the corresponding responsibility to be prepared to use contraceptives or care for a child." How is this more true than saying, "Freedom to engage in sexual intercourse carries the corresponding responsibility to be prepared to have an abortion." (?) Mike Gray
csdf@mit-vax.UUCP (Charles Forsythe) (07/01/85)
In article <504@gitpyr.UUCP> tynor@gitpyr.UUCP (Steve Tynor) writes: >It seems to me that since the fetus of 1 minute and the child of one >month differ only in the amount of time since conception. This is wrong. There's a lot of difference. Millions of cells worth. Months of developments worth. If I handed you a fetus of one minute, you would wipe it off your hand with a tissue and say "Eww, gross! What's your problem?" >They >share the same genetic information, and are thus the same person. All the cells in your body carry them same genentic information. Are they all versions of you? I hope you're not circumcised (sorry about the personal nature, I'm making a point) because the doctor killed thousands of you. If you declare genetic information sacred, then perhaps you advocate that all who die should be cloned to preserve this information. Only special chemical selectors differentiate your cells. Flesh and blood do not a human make, it's very complex. >What if the medical sciences >advance to the point (and I'm sure it won't be long) where a pre-3month >fetus can be kept alive and brought to term? Do we still have the >right to kill it, just because a law says we do? (ah, you say, but >if that's the case then the mother wouldn't have to bring it to >term, she could off load to the artificial womb. Right on! But we CAN'T (right now). So what are we to do? 100 years ago, if a soldier was shot badly in the leg, they cut it off. Nowadays, they can probably save that leg. It's too bad all those soldiers lost their limbs, but what were they to do? Analagously, in the year 2000, they may say,"Too bad all those women aborted their fetuses when now we can artificially incubate them." It remains to be seen whether or not these future people feel we were wrong. >I ask you, how >different is this from adoption? ) Very. The mother is not pregnant for 9 months. I've been told it's neither easy or fun. Today's working woman can't afford to take the time. (Then why did she risk getting pregnant? It's not always the woman's fault! Consider rape!) >The point is, it's dangerous to define such things as the beginning >and end of life on the state of medical technology. Technology >changes, but should ethics have to change with it? Society today is suffering a lot from changing technology and stagnant ethics. The "I hate commies" attitude that brought on the cold war has brought us to the brink of nuclear catastrophe. Nationalism (an old ethic) should have been replaced by Global Understanding (a new ethic), but it wasn't and hasn't and now we're in a big mess. The point is: A one minute old FETUS must live off it's mother -- she controls any rights it has. A one minute old BABY can live off a foster mother, it's the state's responsibility (another can of worms.) Until the fetus can be safely separated from it's mother, it is part of her body (whether or not it has "cute little toes") and is beyond the law of the state. -- Charles Forsythe CSDF@MIT-VAX "The Church of Fred has yet to come under attack. No one knows about it." -Rev. Wang Zeep
mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz) (07/01/85)
In article <504@gitpyr.UUCP> tynor@gitpyr.UUCP (Steve Tynor) writes: > > I guess it all comes down to a definition of when life begins. It comes down to "at what time will society grant what rights to whom." Rights are essentially social contracts. They clearly are not natural laws or "laws of god", despite much rhetoric to the contrary. -- Mike Huybensz ...decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!cybvax0!mrh
jeand@ihlpg.UUCP (AMBAR) (07/01/85)
> > > >Come on. You didn't answer the question. Every freedom carries > >responsibility with it. If you want the freedom, you had best be ready for > >the responsibility. > > > > Jean Marie Diaz > > The above "argument" begs the issue of who is to decide what ^^^ > responsibilities I should carry, You do! With the availability of contraceptives, you can't tell me that in the *majority* (I'm highlighting this for a reason, as I don't want to get flamed over the .01% of contraceptive failures, or the equally small number of pregnancies that result from rape) of abortions, anyone but *you* made you get pregnant. > or for that matter what constitutes a > responsibility. As has been mentioned before, not everyone considers > carrying a fetus to term and then paying $200,000+ to raise it and send > it to school, not to mention putting in the time involved in raising it, > a responsibility. So (as I'm sure has been pointed out *lots* of times before) why don't you skip all the grief and trouble of taking responsibility for the results of your own actions and give the child up for adoption? Jean Marie Diaz
jeand@ihlpg.UUCP (AMBAR) (07/02/85)
> > It seems to me that since the fetus of 1 minute and the child of one > > month differ only in the amount of time since conception. They > > share the same genetic information, and are thus the same person. > > Does this mean you think that infants have the same rights as adults? That was very carefully phrased in order to ridicule the first point of view. I don't know anyone who thinks that infants should be voting, driving, or enlisting in the military. A distinction is being made between civil rights (voting and so forth) and human rights (non-discrimination). Jean Marie Diaz
js2j@mhuxt.UUCP (sonntag) (07/02/85)
> You do! With the availability of contraceptives, you can't tell me > that in the *majority* (I'm highlighting this for a reason, as I don't > want to get flamed over the .01% of contraceptive failures, or the > equally small number of pregnancies that result from rape) of abortions, > anyone but *you* made you get pregnant. .01% contraceptive failure? I thought it was higher than this, but I really don't know. Anyone out there know the failure rate for the most common methods? -- Jeff Sonntag ihnp4!mhuxt!js2j "Well I've been burned before, and I know the score, so you won't hear me complain. Are you willing to risk it all, or is your love in vain?"-Dylan
jeand@ihlpg.UUCP (AMBAR) (07/02/85)
> .01% contraceptive failure? I thought it was higher than this, but > I really don't know. Anyone out there know the failure rate for the most > common methods? As I understand it (and what I was working from) the pill runs about 99.9% success. Anyone want to look it up/correct me? Jean Marie Diaz
js2j@mhuxt.UUCP (sonntag) (07/02/85)
> > .01% contraceptive failure? I thought it was higher than this, but > > I really don't know. Anyone out there know the failure rate for the most > > common methods? > > As I understand it (and what I was working from) the pill runs about > 99.9% success. Anyone want to look it up/correct me? > Jean Marie Diaz If this figure is correct, then a woman who is on the pill and who has intercourse every other night has one chance in six of becoming pregnant in any given year. Those of you who think abortions are needed only by people who just don't bother to use birth control might want to think again. -- Jeff Sonntag ihnp4!mhuxt!js2j "Well I've been burned before, and I know the score, so you won't hear me complain. Are you willing to risk it all, or is your love in vain?"-Dylan
tynor@gitpyr.UUCP (Steve Tynor) (07/03/85)
>> It seems to me that since the fetus of 1 minute and the child of one >> month differ only in the amount of time since conception. They >> share the same genetic information, and are thus the same person. > >Does this mean you think that infants have the same rights as adults? They certainly have the same right to life as an adult. In fact, social standards seem to give the child a greater right to life. Who are the first to board the lifeboats on a sinking ship? Women and children! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Eschew Obfuscation Steve Tynor Georgia Instutute of Technology ...{akgua, allegra, amd, harpo, hplabs, ihnp4, masscomp, ut-ngp, rlgvax, sb1, uf-cgrl, unmvax, ut-sally} !gatech!gitpyr!tynor -- Steve Tynor Georgia Insitute of Technology, Atlanta Georgia, 30332 ...!{akgua,allegra,amd,hplabs,ihnp4,masscomp,ut-ngp}!gatech!gitpyr!tynor
csdf@mit-vax.UUCP (Charles Forsythe) (07/03/85)
In article <728@ihlpg.UUCP> jeand@ihlpg.UUCP (AMBAR) writes: >You do! With the availability of contraceptives, you can't tell me >that in the *majority* (I'm highlighting this for a reason, as I don't >want to get flamed over the .01% of contraceptive failures, or the >equally small number of pregnancies that result from rape) of abortions, >anyone but *you* made you get pregnant. Contraceptive failures are more in to 1% to 25% failure range. .01% is a serious statistical warp. >So (as I'm sure has been pointed out *lots* of times before) why don't >you skip all the grief and trouble of taking responsibility for the >results of your own actions and give the child up for adoption? > > Jean Marie Diaz One would think that a woman would know better but: do you seriously believe that being pregnant for 9 months is not grief and trouble?!!! -- Charles Forsythe CSDF@MIT-VAX "The Church of Fred has yet to come under attack. No one knows about it." -Rev. Wang Zeep
tynor@gitpyr.UUCP (Steve Tynor) (07/05/85)
In article <293@mit-vax.UUCP> csdf@mit-vax.UUCP (Charles Forsythe) writes: >>It seems to me that since the fetus of 1 minute and the child of one >>month differ only in the amount of time since conception. > >This is wrong. There's a lot of difference. Millions of cells worth. >Months of developments worth. If I handed you a fetus of one minute, you ... >>They >>share the same genetic information, and are thus the same person. > >All the cells in your body carry them same genentic information. Are >they all versions of you? I hope you're not circumcised (sorry about the >personal nature, I'm making a point) because the doctor killed thousands >of you. If you declare genetic information sacred, then perhaps you >advocate that all who die should be cloned to preserve this information. >Only special chemical selectors differentiate your cells. Flesh and >blood do not a human make, it's very complex. I think there's a very important difference here. One can live without his foreskin, you don't kill the child when you take it away. On the other hand, when you abort a fetus, you take away its life. You're not just taking *some* of its cells, you're taking *all* of them. Let's compare apples with apples. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= You can't settle an issue if you keep avoiding the questions... Steve Tynor Georgia Instutute of Technology ...{akgua, allegra, amd, harpo, hplabs, ihnp4, masscomp, ut-ngp, rlgvax, sb1, uf-cgrl, unmvax, ut-sally} !gatech!gitpyr!tynor -- Steve Tynor Georgia Insitute of Technology, Atlanta Georgia, 30332 ...!{akgua,allegra,amd,hplabs,ihnp4,masscomp,ut-ngp}!gatech!gitpyr!tynor
powers@noscvax.UUCP (William J. Powers) (07/06/85)
> I guess it all comes down to a definition of when life begins. We > all (I 'spose I shouldn't make such sweeping claims, but what the > heck) agree that a 1 month old child has a right to live and that > its parents or legal guardians have a responsibility to raise it. > They don't have the right to kill it off if it becomes inconvienient > (even burdensome). > > It seems to me that since the fetus of 1 minute and the child of one > month differ only in the amount of time since conception. They > share the same genetic information, and are thus the same person. > If we arbitrarily claim that life magically starts at 3 months, what > prevents us from claiming that life 'ends' at 150 years? Clearly > there has never been anyone who has lived to 150 years, just as > those who support abortion will point out that there has never been > a a pre-3 month fetus that could survive outside its mother's womb. > > But what if we make strides in medicine and are able to keep people > alive past 150 years? Do these people have rights? After all > there's a law that says life ends at 150 years. How can you have > rights if you're not alive? Similarly, what if the medical sciences > advance to the point (and I'm sure it won't be long) where a pre-3month > fetus can be kept alive and brought to term? Do we still have the > right to kill it, just because a law says we do? (ah, you say, but > if that's the case then the mother wouldn't have to bring it to > term, she could off load to the artificial womb. I ask you, how > different is this from adoption? ) > > The point is, it's dangerous to define such things as the beginning > and end of life on the state of medical technology. Technology > changes, but should ethics have to change with it? > I agree entirely with this point. Morality can never be based upon the conditions under which an action is taken; however, actions must be based on these considerations. Morality forms the basis for an attitude, or system of attitudes, not a system of actions. Laws form the basis for a codified system of actions. Laws are mutable, morality is not. What then forms the basis of morality, and how can we tell a moral person from an immoral one? All moral codes are based upon a consideration of the living, social fabric within which we reside. Notice that I did not use the word human anywhere. Morality is based upon a reverence for life and the living. It is a deep acknowledgement of our interrelation and interaction with the world. It is the striving for this reverence, in action and in thought, that constitutes a moral act. Perhaps you may think that I am being too abstract and nonspecific. I would argue that a universal morality can be discussed in no other way. Now I come to the point of this discussion: abortion is neither moral or immoral; it is amoral. Thou shalt not kill, yet human society has institutionalized the mass killing of all forms of the living. It does this with the justification that it must survive. I do not argue by this that human society is immoral. To conclude this one would have to believe that living is immoral. There are those who have concluded this; I am not one of them. There are two important and universal actions of the living: killing and dying. Perhaps I am being too moribund, too excessive. There is, afterall, the joyousness of creation. Perhaps I emphasize these aspects of living only because they are too easily forgotten. How does one make from such a world a moral universe? First, one must be able to see our interrelationship with the rest of the world. Today, the world is very large and our effect far reaching. People cry about the starving of African children and are ready with donations, yet they cannot see that we deprive them of food every day by the overabundance of American life. After seeing, our thoughts are forever altered. If that is all one does, the outcome is only guilt. A guilt, if not debilitating, is, at the very least, the manifestation of a constant effort to forget. The catharsis can only come about through action. It is through this act of catharsis that the moral universe is created. Our actions take on new and broader meanings; they are imbued with a new sense of our interrelationship with the universe. What form these actions take can seem horrible: jihad and murder. But I cannot imagine these actions taken by a moral person without a sense of grief and regret. Indeed, all of life, by its very efforts to survive, must be imbued somewhat with this sense. Life is essentially bitter-sweet, hopefully more sweet than bitter. But to totally overlook the tragedy of life is to be callous, inhuman, and immoral. We must exhibit in the heart and mind reverence and gratitude for that which we devour. We must acknowledge and be imbued with that cycle of eating and being eaten of which we are all a part. To those of you who have skipped over most of this note I apologize for being excessively wordy. The relevence of this discussion to the abortion issue is the following: we must be very clear as to whether we are discussing the legality or the morality of abortion. Deciding to have and abortion or a baby is neither moral or immoral. I can easily imagine cases where both decisions would be immoral. Laws, on the other hand, are not concerned with decisions, whereas morality is founded on the act of deciding. Laws are based upon the stated and unstated objectives of a government. They are codified and enforced to prescribe a particular set of actions. In the best of all possible worlds they are only used as a guide, just as the ten commandments is only a guideline for morality. However, in mass societies laws become a set of strict rules designed primarily to protect the position of various groups. If I had it my way, I would pull the blind fold off of Justice's eyes. But to do so is to trust in the morality of others. People tend to be very near sighted, and therefore essentially unable to act morally. Whether abortion should be legal or not depends on what your objectives are. I, for one, would rather see no abortions performed and more emphasis placed upon birth control. However, I don't believe that in the near future this will be sufficient to eliminate unwanted pregnancies. We, in this country, have the luxury of not having to make abortion a requirement by law. I see this luxury as the result of a very limited view of what constitutes society. I would not make abortion illegal because there is no need for us as a society of Americans to do so. We are not short of able bodied citizens; indeed, we don't seem to care sufficiently for those already here. It is absurd to argue that the availability of abortions is threatening the moral fibre of our society. That problem requires a restructuring of our society in a manner that may have no effect upon the availability of abortion, albeit the number of abortions may dramatically decrease. Murder between citizens is illegal, but murder by the state is legal, because the former is disruptive and other maintains order. To argue that abortion should be made illegal is to argue that it somehow acts in opposition to the objectives of a society. One of those objectives cannot be a moral society, because laws can only affect actions, whereas morality is only concerned with the act of deciding, i.e., morality cannot be legislated and can therefore not be the legitimate concern of a government. Indeed, despite claims to the contrary, it has never been the concern of a government of a large group of people. To conclude this much-longer-than-anticipated note, I would not, at this time, make abortion illegal. In fact, I don't believe that it should even be the concern of the government at this time. When abortion was illegal there was a great need for the government to be concerned because of disruptive influence of an underworld of abortionists that were of general danger to increasing numbers of women seeking abortions. On the other hand, the moral act of having an abortion or a child, must be dealt with in the same way: with fear and trembling. By that I mean that we recognize something ( and that is only, at best, a very small something ) of the meaning and consequences of our action. All we can ask of a moral person is that they try to do their best to think about the seas, lands, animals, and people that may be affected by their actions.
wine@homxa.UUCP (J.GORDON) (07/07/85)
>> As I understand it (and what I was working from) the pill runs about >> 99.9% success. Anyone want to look it up/correct me? >> Jean Marie Diaz > > If this figure is correct, then a woman who is on the pill and who has >intercourse every other night has one chance in six of becoming pregnant >in any given year. > >Jeff Sonntag > A 99.9% reliability for the pill means that if a woman is using the pill and is sexually active, she has a .1% chance of getting pregnant in a given year, NOT each time she has sex.
mjv@ihu1e.UUCP (Vlach) (07/08/85)
>> As I understand it (and what I was working from) the pill runs about >> 99.9% success. Anyone want to look it up/correct me? >> Jean Marie Diaz > A 99.9% reliability for the pill means that if a woman is > using the pill and is sexually active, she has a .1% chance of getting > pregnant in a given year, NOT each time she has sex. I hate to see this 99.9% rate flying around in so many messages. The pill is ~95-97% effective when used EXACTLY as directed. IUD's are slightly less effective, about 94-97%. So this means women using the best contraceptives available still have a small but reasonable chance of getting pregnant. Of course, this says nothing about people who forget to take their pills (or one of my friends whose jerk husband threw hers away once, and whose house burned down once with the pills inside, and got pregnant both times immediately afterward.) Just want you all to realize that pregnancy prevention is not as effective as one might think. Also, I would suspect most abortions go to young women who have never used birth control and don't know where to get it without their parents finding out.
csdf@mit-vax.UUCP (Charles Forsythe) (07/09/85)
In article <538@gitpyr.UUCP> tynor@gitpyr.UUCP (Steve Tynor) writes: >>of you. If you declare genetic information sacred, then perhaps you >>advocate that all who die should be cloned to preserve this information. >>Only special chemical selectors differentiate your cells. Flesh and >>blood do not a human make, it's very complex. > >I think there's a very important difference here. One can live without his >foreskin, you don't kill the child when you take it away. On the other >hand, when you abort a fetus, you take away its life. You're not just >taking *some* of its cells, you're taking *all* of them. > >Let's compare apples with apples. I was talking about genitic information. Until the fetus can live outside the mother, it differs from her internal organs in only ONE way: It contains unique genetic information. Why is that so incredibly special? If the child can live away from its mother, the law says that she has a responsiblity to give it to the proper authorities if she doesn't want it. If she is carrying a new fetus, and she says,"I don't want this," NOBODY can come in a take care of it for her. I say she has a right to get rid of it. There is no current alternative to destroying it. Genetic information is no longer mysterious, no longer holy. It's just there. -- Charles Forsythe CSDF@MIT-VAX "The Church of Fred has yet to come under attack. No one knows about it." -Rev. Wang Zeep
liz@tove.UUCP (Liz Allen) (07/11/85)
In article <481@ihu1e.UUCP> mjv@ihu1e.UUCP (Vlach) writes: >> A 99.9% reliability for the pill means that if a woman is >> using the pill and is sexually active, she has a .1% chance of getting >> pregnant in a given year, NOT each time she has sex. > >I hate to see this 99.9% rate flying around in so many messages. The pill >is ~95-97% effective when used EXACTLY as directed. When I worked at the Pregnancy Aid Center in College Park, the information we had was that the pill was >99% effective when used as directed. And, barring house fires, etc, it is not that difficult to use. >Just want you all to realize that pregnancy prevention is not as effective >as one might think. Also, I would suspect most abortions go to young women >who have never used birth control and don't know where to get it without >their parents finding out. Providing birth control to a teen mainly communicates that it is ok to have sex. Too many teens believe that "it can't happen to me" and don't bother using it. Remember, too, that teens don't plan ahead very well. Many of them don't plan to have sex yet and, when faced with a situation when they need to make a choice, it makes it all that much more difficult to say no when so many people are telling them that it's ok. How many of those that say yes are going to have planned to use birth control? I think we need to teach teens old fashioned things like the self-control and discipline needed to be able to make a decision and stay with it. There was a meeting in Washington, DC a few months ago of a task force that the mayor appointed to look into the problem of teen pregnancy. The high school students kept getting up and saying "tell us not to do it", but the Task Force didn't hear that. They just wanted to say "But if you do, be sure to use birth control". (I could get off, at this point, on some of the other amazing things happening in the public schools these days, but I will hold off...) -- Liz Allen U of Maryland ...!seismo!umcp-cs!liz liz@tove.ARPA "This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all" -- 1 John 1:5
powers@noscvax.UUCP (William J. Powers) (07/13/85)
> >> As I understand it (and what I was working from) the pill runs about > >> 99.9% success. Anyone want to look it up/correct me? > >> Jean Marie Diaz > > > > If this figure is correct, then a woman who is on the pill and who has > >intercourse every other night has one chance in six of becoming pregnant > >in any given year. > > > >Jeff Sonntag > > > A 99.9% reliability for the pill means that if a woman is > using the pill and is sexually active, she has a .1% chance of getting > pregnant in a given year, NOT each time she has sex. This last statement is clearly wrong. Though it is unclear exactly what 99.9% reliability means, if the statement is to have any meaning, it can't mean that a women has a 99.9% chance of getting pregnant in a year. First, let me say that such a statistic could certainly be obtained. You would just take data on how many people that use the pill get pregnant in a year (note that this statistic is independent of proper usage of the pill). However, such a statistic is virtually useless, since the result is independent of the number of times one has sex. If I have sex every night or once a year certainly makes a difference in my chances of getting pregnant. Such a statistic would be useless in my being able to judge what my chances of getting pregnant were unless I had some idea of the number of times this average group of women had sex in a year. If I had the answer to that question, however, I could assign some estimate of the probabilty of getting pregnant given that I have sex. The point is that probability of getting pregnant per sexual encounter while using the pill is a useful statistic; the average number of pregnancies for women while using the pill in a year is a useless statistic unless I know how many times they had sex in that year. Secondly, as I have pointed out previously, if a women has sex three times a week, she will get pregnant on average of about once every 6.4 years. That means that she has about a one in six chance of becoming pregnant in any given year. (This result assumes that the chance of getting pregnant while using the pill is 1/1000.) However, it is worth pointing out that this probability undoubtedly includes those cases where someone forgot to use the pill, and other such misapplications of the pill. It is also worth pointing out that by simply abstaining during times that you think you're fertile (the temperature method will give you a accurate way of doing this), then the probability of getting pregnant while using the pill will decrease dramatically. It is interesting to note that in 1979 there were less than 3.9 million births. If we use assume that one out of every four pregnancies end in an abortion (the 1980 figure), then there were about 5.2 million pregnancies in 1979. In 1980 there were about 43.2 million women between the ages of 15 and 45. These figures would imply that the chances of getting pregnant in a year, even when you want to, is about 1 in eight. Either there are a lot of women who cannot get pregnant or the number of sexual encounters is far lower than three times per week. I suspect that it is the latter assumption which is greatly exaggerated. Bill Powers