brianp@shark.UUCP (Brian Peterson) (07/21/84)
I want to play a game that every 2 year old is an expert at:
the game of `why'. I will ask a simple question, and you try
to answer it with a simple sentence or three. I repeat
`why', and you have to explain your answer. This tends to boil
things down to fundamental assumptions rather nicely. Keeping things
simple avoids going off the track, and avoids flaming emotionalism.
This could be fun...
First question (mostly to anti-abortionists):
"Why is abortion bad?"
Mail me responses, or post 'em. Whatever. I just want variety and simplicity.
Brian Peterson {ucbvax, ihnp4, } !tektronix!shark!brianplaura@utzoo.UUCP (Laura Creighton) (07/23/84)
In setting up a society there are two clear-cut and well documented ways that one can go. The first one is where individuals transact with each other on a value for value basis. There are several variations on this theme, ranging from direct barter to laisez-faire capitalism. The other way is through terrorism. You do what Big Julie wants or Big Julie will kill you, enslave you, take away your property, kidnap or torture your relatives... There are several variations on this scheme, including some dictatorships and other state controlled nations. Suppose we decide that we do not want anything to do with the second alternative. The first thing that we must do is set up a method where one is strongly discouraged from using force or threat of force to take something from somebody else. In general, what you do is declare that ``all men have certain rights'' enumerate the rights and then prosecute those who trangress against them. The right to life features in such lists. if the fetus is a human being then the fetus should have the right to life. if the fetus is not a human being then it never had any rights in the first place. (though perhaps some of the ``cruelty to animals'' laws might apply. Some of the methods of abortion are very painful for the aborted fetus -- so much so that they would not be acceptable ways to slaughter pigs, for instance.) If the fetus is a human being, and you argue in favour of abortion on demand, then you are saying that a certain section of the population (perhaps even the majority) should have the power to kill other sections of the population. Or to extort others on the strength of threat of death (marry me or I'll have an abortion!). No matter what the benefits to any segment of the population, you have taken away a fundamental right from others. This is an incredibly dangerous precident to take. You could use it to take away the lives of crippled or elderly people, for instance. the same arguments ``well, they won't have a happy life'' and ``they are a burden on their relatives'' and ``they aren't wanted'' apply. The other serious problem is deciding *by public opinion* whether a fetus is a human being or not. This is sheer idiocy. You do not decide a matter of fact by public opinion. Public opinion has yet to change the speed of light, or the law of gravity. You cannot legislate the truth into existence. In cases where the truth is unknown, or imperfectly known, the last thing that you want to do is to submit the choice for public vote. If the experts in the field cannot come up with the truth, then the `common man' cannot be expected to. He may have strong opinions, but people have had stong opinions about the flatness of the earth, that Jews were all inhuman monsters who poisoned wells and ate unbaptised Christian children, and that burying a potato with three drops of the blood of the one you hate (and appropriate chanting and whatnot) by the light of the new moon will cause him to come down with some ``wasting disease'' as the potato rots...and what to do with potato buriers when you find them, or even suspect that your neighbour is one. Public opinion is dangerous. 3 million people who are wrong are still wrong. So what does one do when one does not have the evidence to make a decision? Especially in the case of defining ``what is a huamn being'' something which is even likely to never have a satisfactory answer? One thing to consider is whether one is prepared to be wrong. The consequences of not aborting a fetus which is not a humen being (though this is unknown to us at the time) is that there is an extra person born who needn't be. The consequences of aborting a fetus that is a human being are multifold. But the worst that I see are: the actual killing the sanctioning of that killing and the assertion that truth is a matter of public opinion. This is so close to belief==truth that it is staggering to consider. * * * * Sorry Brian, no short answers. However, I think I have gone through several ``whys''in this... Laura Creighton utzoo!laura
owens@gatech.UUCP (Gerald R. Owens) (07/27/84)
>I want to play a game that every 2 year old is an expert at: >the game of `why'. I will ask a simple question, and you try >to answer it with a simple sentence or three. I repeat >`why', and you have to explain your answer. This tends to boil >things down to fundamental assumptions rather nicely. Keeping things >simple avoids going off the track, and avoids flaming emotionalism. >This could be fun... >First question (mostly to anti-abortionists): > "Why is abortion bad?" > Brian Peterson {ucbvax, ihnp4, } !tektronix!shark!brianp Sounds to me like an good proposition, provided that the one who is asking "why" has the capability of recognizing a good answer with more skill than a 2 year old has. Otherwise, one would just be arguing with a broken record stuck on the groove that utters "why?". How about a counter question: "What is the fundamental difference between a born member of the human race and an unborn member of the same race, that is so large that terminating the life of one would be called murder, but the termination of the other life would not be called murder?" Gerald Owens Owens@gatech
das@ucla-cs.UUCP (08/08/84)
> "What is the fundamental difference between a born member of the human > race and an unborn member of the same race, that is so large that > terminating the life of one would be called murder, but the termination > of the other life would not be called murder?" California's murder statutes make killing a fetus murder *except* in the case of abortion performed in accordance with the Therapeutic Abortion Act (or whatever it's called). Other states no doubt have similar laws. So it appears that there is widespread agreement at least that no one has the right to kill a fetus *without* the mother's consent. Now, *IF* a woman has a right to abort a fetus she is carrying, then I assume all would agree that certain other people (presumably physicians) should have the right to to kill it if she authorizes them to -- otherwise it would be a vacuous, even dangerous, right. The point here is that for the sake of determining whether there's a right to kill a fetus, the actual agent of the abortion is immaterial; if a woman has someone kill a fetus she is carrying, then she bears the (shared) responsibility for killing it. So the focus of the question can be narrowed to the woman's decision and the conflict of rights between her and a fetus in her body: What is the difference between a human that she has just given birth to and an unborn human she is carrying, that would forbid a woman from killing the born human, but would allow her to kill the unborn human at some stage of its development? It's the old where-do-you-draw-the-line question again. Now a born human can be cared for by any one of billions of people, so if a woman doesn't want her baby, her desire not to care for it doesn't conflict with the baby's right to live, since she can put it up for adoption. If it's unborn, let's see: If the fetus is developed enough so that it could be kept alive outside of the mother's body (whether in an incubator or another woman's womb), and the mother doesn't want it, must she consent to a medical procedure which might be more dangerous to her than an abortion? Must she bear the cost of the procedure above the cost of an abortion? On the analogy of adoption, she probably would not have to support the fetus once it's no longer in her body. What if there's a 50-50 chance that the fetus won't survive if it's removed? If abortions were forbidden, and the removal procedure posed little risk to her at this stage, may she ask to have it done, or must she carry the fetus to term, or at least to the point where the removal procedure is safer for the fetus, but riskier to her? What about IUDs? A hard-core right-to-lifer would either outlaw them or require that the fertilized ovum be removed and saved for implantation in another woman or (once the technology gets there) a machine. Does a one-celled human being have the same right to life a born infant has? Who pays for the care of the fetuses and children which would otherwise have been aborted? One can't argue that the right to life absolutely outweighs costs to society -- if that were the case, we'd pay for an ambulance at every street corner, extensive safety systems in every industry, etc. I don't believe in an absolute right to life for every conceived human being, a right which outweighs *every* other consideration that does not significantly endanger another human's life. Social convenience sometimes *does* take precedence -- we *don't* forgo the nonessentials of life (most cars, airplanes, nice restaurants, radio, TV) to pay for perfect universal health care. We make a tradeoff at the level of a whole society on the basis of convenience. Does this scale down? Can one woman decide that the burden o carrying a fetus to term outweighs its right to live? (Depending on her environment, "burden" encompasses everything from mere inconvenience to loss of income, rejection, or in some cultures, endangerment of her life.) I'd be a hypocrite not to say yes. I don't work just long enough to earn enough to live on and spend the rest of my time volunteering in hospitals or hanging around bars hailing taxis for people too drunk to drive, and I don't contribute everything I earn above the minimum I need to live to life-saving causes. By making my life pleasant for me, I probably failed to save a child from starving somewhere. If I saved one child through contributions, I could have saved another through more. I've traded the life of a child for my convenience. Most of us have. Is it different from abortion because the child is unknown to me, and I let it die through inaction? Isn't it worse, because the child was sentient? I don't believe rights are absolute (if I did, then this would belong in net.religion); we trade rights for convenience. Because we know we're not perfect judges of others' sensitivities, if it's not overly inconvenient we will extend rights if we think they'd be appreciated. We kill animals for food, because it would be too inconvenient not to. We (at least Americans) don't torture them for the most part, however, because we think they feel the pain as pain. We don't kill born humans because they (or people who know and maybe love them) want to live, and there are few circumstances where we recognize the killer's desire to prevail over this want (self-defense, for example). A non-sentient fetus is known by nobody, including itself, and does not experience nasty stimuli as pain as we know it. For most people, a desire to kill it would be mere wanton destructiveness, and not worthy of overriding its rights. For one person in the world, though, there's a more substantial reason, enough of one in my eyes to allow an abortion. If a non-sentient fetus is developed enough to experience pain, then I'd still unquestionably agree to a right to an abortion, provided it were done to inflict minimal pain. Once the fetus is sentient, the mother's convenience may sometimes not outweigh its rights, but who sets the guidelines for acceptable reasons and judges the validity of a woman's reasons? In the absence of any societal consensus, we let the woman herself decide, which is not as self-serving as it seems -- the fetus's case is pleaded by hormonal and socially-induced maternal feelings, so as many women have argued, a decision to have an abortion is rarely as capricious as some make it out to be. I think the Supreme Court decision of 1973 set a reasonable balance. Sorry to be so long-winded.
bs@faron.UUCP (Robert D. Silverman) (08/09/84)
I love the logic behind the latest question i.e. the difference between a born member of the human race and an unborn member of the human race ... etc. The question itself implies that the unborn ARE members of the human race. This seems to be one of the fundamental issues in the abortion question. Are they or aren't they? [GOD only knows] Its nice to be able to ask a question with a built in bias and is typical of the non-logic of many anti-abortionists. Please note that I don't imply that the person who asked it is anti- abortion.