regard@ttidcc.UUCP (Adrienne Regard) (04/24/85)
>> isn't even an issue of _responsibility_ since the woman in question has >> taken every avenue POSSIBLE to avoid pregnancy (short of refusing her >> husband his conjugal rights, which action would surface a whole nother >> issue). (moral issues and religious issues, too, remember). >This very much IS a matter of responsibility. If you go out and get in an >auto accident, even though you took every avenue POSSIBLE to avoid one (short >of not driving), you don't have the right simply to walk away in the case that >another person is involved. Yeah, and take it a step further -- if the reason you got into the auto accident was a failure of the equipment that has been tested and passed by the U.S. govt, you sue the automaker for an unsafe product. And the automaker pays the fine. In a pregnancy situation, I suppose you can sue the hospital who did the sterilization procedure (although it is known that no procedure on the human body is completely predictable), and maybe even win (assume it is their fault for the moment). Does that mean that the hospital then takes care of the kid? No. It's yours, warts and all. > it forces someone else (the baby) to give up their most fundamental right >(the right to life) so that you might avoid the CONSEQUENCES of your CHOICE. Here we get into the free will vs. deterministic universe discussions they are having on net.philosophy right now. A baby cannot decide when to be conceived. It cannot create itself from nothing and plant itself into a womb. It's "fundamental" right to life is not fundamental at all, but a right that is granted at a cost to others (the parents, the society, etc.). A baby is recognised _by the people who grant this so called "fundamental" right_ as being a person (and thus gaining the right) at birth. There are factional disagreements as to whether or not that should be extended to 3 months prior to birth, 6 months, or from the point of conception. That is the debate, in a nutshell. >If you can come up with a birth-control method that (a) is 100% effective One is tempted to respond "why do men ask women, then?" or "why do men not carry the responsibility of the child, then" (I'm talking about single parent (women) households here) but it isn't germaine. >(b) doesn't involve violating the rights of babies, go right ahead. You are talking about fetuses, not babies. I don't agree with you that fetuses are human and therefore have rights. Fetuses become babies at birth and are granted rights by the permission of their parents and society. >Or if you can come up with a life-support system that allows babies to >spend their "pre-birth" months in an incubator, do so. What does that have to do with the price of eggs in China?
mjc@cmu-cs-cad.ARPA (Monica Cellio) (04/25/85)
>Or if you can come up with a life-support system that allows babies to >spend their "pre-birth" months in an incubator, do so. If you want to have the fetus kept alive so badly after its removal from the host, feel free to make the technology available. But don't try to suggest that pro-choicers have that obligation. We're the ones who don't believe the fetus has rights in excess of the mother, remember? I'm willing to bet that if you provide a technology that keeps the fetus alive and does not impose any excess medical risk on the mother, and you pay the extra costs (note: *you*, not society), most if not almost all women will use that technology. But it seems to me that the ball's in your court. -Dragon -- UUCP: ...ucbvax!dual!lll-crg!dragon ARPA: monica.cellio@cmu-cs-cad or dragon@lll-crg
tdn@cmu-cs-spice.ARPA (Thomas Newton) (04/25/85)
> If you want to have the fetus kept alive so badly after its removal from the > host, feel free to make the technology available. But don't try to suggest > that pro-choicers have that obligation. We're the ones who don't believe the > fetus has rights in excess of the mother, remember? And I'm sure that there were many people in the Old South who didn't believe that blacks had any rights to life & liberty that would exceed their "right" to own "property". Does the fact that there are still a few Ku Klux Klan and Neo-Nazi types around give these people the right to enslave blacks and kill Jews, because they don't believe that there is anything wrong with it? Except in the case of rape/incest, the mother had a CHOICE whether or not to engage in the activities that led to the pregnancy. Avoiding the consequences of that choice by killing someone else (the baby) is not acceptable. In the case of rape/incest, having society bear the costs of keeping the baby alive separately from the mother is the solution most fair to both mother and baby. (Unfortunately, the choice in rape/incest cases today is between victimizing the mother further and victimizing the baby -- not a very good choice.) > I'm willing to bet that if you provide a technology that keeps the fetus > alive and does not impose any excess medical risk on the mother, and you pay > the extra costs (note: *you*, not society), most if not almost all women will > use that technology. But it seems to me that the ball's in your court. Sorry. I just don't agree with this. If you spend a lot of money and get deeply into debt to a bank, you could propose killing the bank manager and erasing the records to "solve" your financial problems. Assuming that you could get away with it (either through a law/court decisions making it legal to kill bank managers, or through luck/skill), you would indeed get rid of your money problems. But I have the right to insist that you can't kill the bank manager, and it isn't conditional on my agreeing to pay back your loan. Even if you don't believe there is anything wrong with killing bank managers. Of course, not spending the money in the first place would prevent you from getting into this situation, and it might be possible to spend *some* money without risking a high probability of defaulting on the loan. This roughly corresponds to not having sex, and having sex but using birth control. If a man gets a woman pregnant, it is the man and woman who are responsible for the pregnancy, not I. Anything they do to alleviate the consequences of that pregnancy is entirely up to them, AS LONG AS IT DOESN'T INVOLVE VIOLATING SOMEONE ELSE'S RIGHTS. Abortion involves violating the baby's rights. Putting the baby in an incubator, if one was available, wouldn't. But since the father and the mother brought the baby into the world, *they* should pay for its care until someone else (like an adoption agency or the government) volunteers to take over the baby's care. -- Thomas Newton Thomas.Newton@cmu-cs-spice.ARPA
carlton@masscomp.UUCP (Carlton Hommel) (04/27/85)
"Hey, Rocky, watch me pull a 25 article debate with 5290 included lines out of net.abortion, with just one line!" In article <344@cmu-cs-spice.ARPA> (Thomas Newton) writes: >Abortion involves violating the baby's rights. No it doesn't! Yes it does! You gunkey! Hairsplitter! Wombat breath! You are an excuse for retroactive abortion! Oh yeah? Yeah! Sheesh. Carl Hommel Husband: I can't stand it! Arrrrrugh! Wife: To many included lines, dear?