response 128 of 404:

Oct 22 21:04 UTC 1998

(Jon... if I can find a copy of the paper from that day sure... just let me
know how to get it to you... just e-mail me.  That goes for anyone else who
would be interested in a copy of that cartoon... the art isn't great, but I
like the statement.)

response 130 of 404:

Oct 23 01:56 UTC 1998

Although I don't know what my church stance is on abortion or homosexuality,
I feel both are wrong.

I never thought about abortions, till my wife came home from the doctor and
sobbingly told me the doctor wanted to abort my daughter (due to high blood
pressure problems).  My wife's life was in danger by keeping the baby.  Yet
she did, and the choice was all her's.  That started me thinking about
abortion and the right or wrong of it.

If you manually split a human egg after it reaches 2 cells, you get twins, or
if the size reaches 4 cells, and they are separated, you get quadruplets. 
After the cells reach eight in number, any split causes death to all cells. 
God places a soul after the original egg has multiplied to 8 cells (in my
opinion).  But what about frozen eggs and fetuses.  Would God place a soul in a
state of limbo?

My children were both born by c-section.  By the logic that they are citizens
when born, a fetus would also be a citizen when forcefully extracted from it's
mother.  Where is the ACLU then.  Why are not such fetuses given medical care
to save their lives.  Although many fetuses are torn to shreds inside and so
are born dead (so to speak), many are also removed alive and very much
recognizable as humans.  Doctors don't always get the date of conception
right.  

Want to split some hairs?  Then kill them before you pull them out. That way
they wouldn't be citizens.

If it is OK to kill unborn children for any or all reasons,  then it is OK
to kill you for the same.  Hitler thought so.

response 132 of 404:

Oct 23 03:23 UTC 1998

Re #127: I like to take joking responses semi-seriously to read the
funny responses I get. 

Re #130: you do make difficulties where there is no need for them. The
fundamental question is the control of a woman over her body and its
contents. It has been decided that a woman has the right to terminate
the life of a fetus younger than a certain age - period. All the quibbling
over death before or after extraction, immaterial issues like the mystical
"soul", and so forth, are totally irrelevant. 

response 134 of 404:

Oct 23 06:51 UTC 1998

#133> I don't believe that the Supreme Court had made a decision on abortion
prior to Roe v Wade. Perhaps I'm wrong. While I agree that decisions are never
and should never be set entirely in stone, the Supreme Court has been rather
supportive of the *general* legalization of abortion, while being supportive
of certain restrictions.

At any rate, I was of the opinion that Rane was saying that the nature and
presence of the soul was irrelevant to the legal issue of abortion. I agree.
The soul is a religious and spiritual construct, and is generally irrelevant
to legal issues.

It is legal to remove somebody from life support, if the family deems it
appropriate (particualrly the custodial parents). In almost all cases of
abortion (if not *all* cases of legal abortion), the fetus would die without
the life support of the womb. The custodial parent (i.e., the mother who's
carrying it) should have the legal right to remove that life support.

There. A legal justification of abortion that doesn't rely on "citizenship"
or even on "the rights of the mother vs. the rights of the unborn." Remove
the fetus from the womb; if it can live on its own, without life support, it's
welcome to continue to live.

This line of reasoning is generally called the "viability" argument, and is
used to defend first and early second trimester abortions, while supporting
a ban on late second (the extreme point at which fetuses are viable in
incubators) and third trimester abortions.

response 136 of 404:

Oct 23 10:38 UTC 1998

What makes me uncomfortable is that there's no absolute point
along the continuum of fetal growth where the fetus becomes 
"human."  No one advocates infanticide.  No one (that I know of)
advocates the right to abortion at eight months, because in
most cases that would indeed amount to infanticide.  So we 
slide the cutoff back along the continuum until the law finally
says, "Okay, before *this* point it's okay to abort."  Why?
Because the Supreme Court says so?  Because all us "reasonable"
people think it sounds, oh, about right?  Not very convincing,
with all respect to "reasonable" people (most of whom believed,
until about 20 years ago, that homosexuality was a form of mental 
illness).  

There, I've admitted that the other side has a valid argument.

response 138 of 404:

Oct 23 15:43 UTC 1998

senna, there's a difference between saying, "You have reasoned and valid
points, some of which I even agree with" and "You're right."

I have seen and read proponents, even on the extremes of either side, admit
that the other side was reasoned and valid points. On the pro-choice side,
most advocates admit that the general idea of abortion is distasteful or at
least unfortunate. Their feeling is that the alternative -- prohibiting
abortions -- is more distasteful and unfortuante. Likewise, on the pro-life
side, advocates admit that it's unfortuante that a woman should bring to term
an unwanted child; their feeling is that the option -- abortion -- is more
unfortunate.

In short, nowhere do I hear (for any of MD's beloved "reasonable" people)
anyway saying, "Killing fetuses is great fun!" or "Giving birth to unwanted
children is the ideal to which we should all strive!"

So please get off the Superiority "I'm Not TAking a Side so I can Freely
Insult Those Who have" Fence. I've been up there myself, from time to time.
It doesn't get me anywhere, and it just annoys everyone else.

response 140 of 404:

Oct 23 18:14 UTC 1998

Re #136: Actually, one scientist has proposed "brain life" as the
"absolute point" to which you refer. 

With regard to the general "message" that pro-lifers are trying to send, I
was interested to read that in the latest budget battle in Congress,
"pro-lifers" (the term used in the paper) were instrumental in removing
contraceptive coverage from medical insurance for federal employees. This
tells me that there may be another hidden agenda for at least some
pro-lifers.  Either they are anti-sex, or they want to eliminate any human
control over the consequences of sexual activity, or they want to bring as
many babies into the world as possible, regardless of whether or not they
are wanted. 

response 142 of 404:

Oct 23 22:39 UTC 1998

Re 140:  The catholic chruch's argument is that every male sperm represents
a potental human life... and none should be wasted for any other silliness.
(Okay, I'm tired, my languge has gotten a little silly... please don't think
I'm trivializing the issue.... I'm just a tad loopy at teh moment.)  Kind of
like the Monty Python song "Every Sperm is Sacred."  But the point being is
that according to this dogma, humans aren't meant to have sex for teh
enjoyment of it, we're supposed to do it to procreate.  The fact that it's
kind of fun is simply temptation to do it more often.  So any form of birth
control is out of the question.  

Keep in mind that I say that it is the chruch's belief-- if you asked the Pope
"how does the chruch feel about birth control?"  that's kind of how he'd
respond.  Actual catholics run the spectrum.  I have a very conservitave pair
of friends who are trying the rhythm thing (they just got married), and the
rest of us have bets as to when in  the next year she'll be pregnant.  I have
another very devout friend who is getting married in the spring and plans on
using birth control until she's at least 30.  *shrug*  

but I babble.

response 144 of 404:

Oct 23 22:44 UTC 1998

142 slipped in... my friend, who is catholic, gave a rundown of the catholic's
viewpoint on it...  I think the official catholic viewpoint is that sex should
be for love, pleasure, and procreation.  They don't have any illusions about
it not being something pleasurable.  Protestant doctrines are much loser.

But, they do have that "potential human life thing."  I've always thought that
was just bizarre.  Thanks to cloning, regular cells are potential human life
too.

response 146 of 404:

Oct 24 01:06 UTC 1998

Yeah, and if you think that's bad, sperm have a lifespan of only a few days,
if I remember correctly.

response 148 of 404:

Oct 24 01:38 UTC 1998

This statement was made a ways back "(we all know how well the
 earlier 'total illegality' of abortion was - abortion was about as common
 as it is now, but with much worse consequences for human health.) "
I would like to see this substantiated.  I think the present rate far exceeds
prior rates.

response 150 of 404:

Oct 24 03:13 UTC 1998

re 147:
        You're right that the notion that a fetus suddenly becomes a human life
at some exact point is rediculous.  It certainly is.  The sperm and egg
individually woudln't be considered a viable human.  Once they've combined
they're far more likely to become a human than before, but there's still a
very high chance that the fetus will die before the woman even knows she's
pregnant, and even discounting that, at that point we've got a one celled
organism lacking just about all the traits that we would normally use to
consider somebody to be human.  On the other hand, a fetus a few days before
birth isn't very different from a newborn baby.  In between, there's a nine
month long process of going from one state to the other, and there is no one
instant when we can suddenly decide that that fetus is human now, but wasn't
a few seconds before.  Unfortunately, there's no good legal mechanism for
dealing with gradual changes like that, so the law has to pick a time and draw
the line there.  The end of the first trimester is quite arbitrary, but so
would any other time that line could possibly be drawn.

response 152 of 404:

Oct 24 03:44 UTC 1998

I think Kenton needs to read cmcgee's resp:137 carefully.

Your wife was given a choice - to protect her life, or to protect her
baby's life.  She made a courageous choice.  Suppose instead the doctor
had said "Your pregnancy is endangering your life, but it's against the
law to abort it."  She would have been spared the opportunity to make a
courageous choice, because the government would already have decided to
courageously risk her life for the baby's.  I believe it was right for
your wife to make the choice she did, and I applaud and respect her for
it.  But that does NOT mean that I think it would have been good for the
government to make the choice for her.

It's true that most pro-life people would allow abortion in cases where
the life of the mother is endangered, so even under those laws your wife
would not have been robbed of her choice.  However, medical problems
aren't the only kinds of problems which might make giving birth to a
child an extraordinary act of courage.  Bringing a child into this world
is a huge responsiblity, and for many people find it unimaginable that
they can stretch far enough to do that.  To go ahead requires courage
from them, just as it did for your wife.  I believe they too should be
allowed a choice in the matter.

Like Rane, I find your arguements about when the soul enters the baby
irrelevant.  But they aren't irrelevant because I don't believe in
souls.  They are irrelevant because even if I agreed with everything you
said (and I do agree with much of it), it wouldn't change my mind about
abortion.  The reason I believe in abortion being a choice is not
because I think babies don't turn human for three months.  You can harp
on that point forever and it will never change my mind about anything.

My reasoning works like this:

 - First, it is important to understand that the viewpoint of the law
   is not the viewpoint of a person.  The law must be impartial.  Good
   people are partial to their friends and family.  The law must serve
   the good of society as a whole.  Individuals serve other individuals.
   The law must protect the freedom of individuals to seek fulfillment.
   Where the interests of individuals conflict, the law must favor those
   whose actions strengthen society instead of those who weaken it.
   (That is why it's good for the law to strongly discourage murders,
   while being relatively friendly to farmers).

 - From the viewpoint of society as a whole, there is no shortage of
   babies.  Quite the contrary, most of our problems would be much
   reduced if population growth was slower.  The capacity for babies
   to make a contribution to society is extremely limited.  On the
   contrary, the effort involved in raising them costs society quite
   a lot.

 - Of course, for society to try to restrict the birth of babies would
   make a lot of individuals very unhappy, causing depression and
   revolutions and such.  Individuals like you and me want our babies
   very much, no matter what they cost us to raise.  A sane and stable
   society will respect our desire for babies.  And after all, society
   does need enough babies to make a new generation, and if there are
   people willing to do the work of raising them, that's terrific.
   Here, the needs of the individual and the needs of society are in
   perfect harmony.

 - However, babies that their parents don't want have very little value
   to society.  To force a productive member of society to bring yet
   another baby into a world with too many babies doesn't do any good.
   Not only is it a burden on an over populated world, but it isn't
   even as good a risk of becoming a productive member of society as
   a baby that is wanted by someone.

 - The right to life is not something that comes for free just because
   you have human genes.  You need to provide some value to someone.
   Some people, like the folks who recently beat Matthew Shepard to
   death, or the folks who bombed the federal building in Oklahoma
   provide more negative value than positive value, and their right to
   life is generally consider low to non-existant.  We generally try to
   give everyone a lot of benefit of doubt when judging their worthiness
   to live, be we do make those judgements.

 - As far as value to society goes, a baby is a zero, or in these days
   of overpopulation, even a slight negative.  However, my unborn baby
   has some non-intrinsic value - I value him.  I am personally
   committed to doing everything in my power to raise him to be a
   useful and positive contributor to the society of man.  His existance
   adds to my personal desire to make this a world worth living in.
   That's where all of the value of that baby to society resides, and
   it is primarily on the basis of preserving that value that I claim
   that society should aide me in protecting the life of that child.

 - An unwanted baby does not have that kind of value.  Its parents
   are not prepared and willing to make the effort needed to ensure
   that it will be eventually worth the food it eats.  True, there
   are lots of potential adoptive parents who'd like to adopt the baby,
   but they would be equally happy to adopt any other baby.  There
   really are plenty of babies in the world.  We don't need to bring
   more babies into the world for people to adopt.

 - Babies are human from conception, but they aren't part of human
   society until they are loved and wanted.  When a parent says, "I
   want this child," then that child gets the rights of a human being.

 - The rule allowing three months to decide on an abortion is not
   because the baby somehow gets a soul at three months.  It's because
   three months is adequate time for a woman to find out she is
   pregnant and make a thoughtful, considered choice.  Once that time
   is past, society assumes the parent has made a commitment, and will
   hold them to it, holding them responsibile for the child.  It's
   a reasonable time period to make an informed realistic choice.  It
   has nothing to do with the time it takes to grow a baby.  It has
   to do with the time it takes to grow a parent.

 - Pro-choice means that if you ask someone why they became a parent,
   the answer will never be "well, I got drunk and the condom leaked."
   The answer will have something to do with wanting a child, and
   wanting to be a parent to the child.  In an overpopulated world,
   we should always have good reasons to add another baby.

Yes, I really believe that the value of humans is socially determined. 
I expect there will be questions about vegetables and homeless people
with no ties to anyone.  I can answer those, with arguments deriving
from the complexity of society and humans and the many kinds of value a
person can have and the difficulty of judging that value.  Unborn babies
are uniquely simple in their social connections.