response 87 of 404:

Oct 20 05:10 UTC 1998

Um, maybe the ACLU's agenda has to do with civil liberties?

Un-identifiable bodies are found pretty often.   If by some mischance
you or a family member died under such circumstances, would it please
you to know that the government would hand the unknown body over for a
nice Hindu burial?  The normal procedure is a nice respectful
non-sectarian burial (with the option of a religious reburial if your
family ever finds you).

I would consider it very improper for any governmental authority to be
handing unidentified bodies over to some religious group for sectarian
burial, and I would consider doing so a violation of church and state
seperation.  A very appropriate case for the ACLU.

Of course, there are some who would argue that these particular bodies
are not bodies at all, but medical waste, which is a whole other can of
worms.

I also tend to wonder about the motives of this church.  I've never
before heard of any Christian church stepping forward to offer to give
unidentified bodies a "Christian burial".  Most christian churches are
reluctant to give religous burials to people whose religion is unknown. 
Could it be that some religious group was trying to make a media event
out of burying the poor aborted fetuses?

response 89 of 404:

Oct 20 10:47 UTC 1998

If we eventually discover a gay "gene," would it be okay for a
woman to abort a pregnancy because she'd found out the child
had the "gay" gene?

response 91 of 404:

Oct 20 14:16 UTC 1998

But I didn't hear it here first, Michael.
It's illegal in at least one country to abort a fetus on the basis of gender,
because people were doing exactly that (one of the Asian countries, I believe,
where females aren't valued as much as males, so mothers would want to clear
the reproductive system of that nasty female fetus to make room for a
wonderful male one).

The general term for this is eugenics: Deliberately manipulating the genetic
make-up of the child pre-natally, and discarding "mistakes."

I agree that it's a touchy issue. I understand, further, that mothers *are*
given the option to abort in some birth defect cases... I'm not sure if it's
just the fairly obvious ones (Siamese twins, for instance), or how advanced
the testing is.

This is precisely the argument I've made against arguing so hard taht sexual
orientation is entirely genetic. You suggest that liberal groups will demand
that "non-PC" abortions (or eugenic abortions) be made illegal; I fear
precisely the opposite, that the religious right, normally opposed to
abortion, will freely recommend abortion when a "bad" gene is found... the
gay gene, the alcoholic gene, the bleeding heart liberal gene.

I think that there is a significant risk of both things happening... extremist
"bleeding heart" liberals suing expectant mothers to keep them from aborting
an undesirable fetus, and extremist "religious right" conservatives
encouraging expectant mothers to abort it. And I don't see a clear way for
the law to handle it, other than to step in and say, "All right, then, NOBODY
gets an abortion," which (for me) isn't a desirable result at all.

As to the other question> We start as one cell. We come out as infants.
Depending on the contexts, it's theoretically possible to abort anytime during
the pregnancy. The vast majority of abortions occur during the first
trimester, and most (if not all) states have laws prohibiting third trimester,
and sometimes second trimester, abortions, frequently excepting cases where
the mother's life is at risk, or the baby is going to die anyway. So, yes,
most aborted fetuses are barely recognizable as human, if at all. A very few
are very recognizable as human.

response 93 of 404:

Oct 20 15:40 UTC 1998

 re #86:  "What actually IS the agenda of the ACLU?"

 Perhaps they don't like the idea of aborted fetuses being turned into
 a political gimmick.

response 95 of 404:

Oct 20 16:08 UTC 1998

In my opinion, if you're going to support abortion at the woman's
choice, then that's what you have to support, even if the woman's
actual motives are repugnant to you.  Suppose a woman chooses
to have an abortion solely because the child, if it had been born,
would have been the heir to a fortune that will all go to her if the
child is not born?  As despicable as that sounds, you must give the
woman that choice if you want to be pro-choice.  

response 97 of 404:

Oct 20 20:03 UTC 1998

Right. Amendment 14 specifies *birth* - not conception - in the U.S. as a
qualification for citizenship.

Contrary to brighn, however, I can't imaging most Christian churches favoring
abortion even in the case of a 'gay' gene, which I would think that they
continue to deny anyway even in the face of hard scientific evidence. Even
if they accept the presence of such a gene, I think the recommendation would
instead be to have the child and force "treatments" upon it something to the
effect of institutionalization or cloistering.

response 99 of 404:

Oct 21 01:33 UTC 1998

If I said "most Christian churches," I misspoke. I can't believe I said that,
and don't believe I did.
I think there may be a small number of fringe ultra-conservative churches that
would sanction and even encourage aborted "gay" babies.

*Most* Christian churches currently hold that stance that homosexuality is
a sin, but so are a lot of other things, and Jesus loves people despite their
sins, because everyone is a sinner.

You can actually get confirmation of that last claim on our very own beloved
www.godhatesfags.com, where Rev. Phelps rants at the Christian churches who
dare to teach that Jesus loves everyone, and represents himself as being in
the tiny minority of right-thinking people who are willing to preach fire and
brimstone.

response 101 of 404:

Oct 21 02:21 UTC 1998

"The "agenda" of the ACLU is to preserve the rights of the people under
 the Bill of Rights," for example by enabling the mentally ill to live
squalidly on the streets rather than allowing society to care for
them in a humane manner.

response 103 of 404:

Oct 21 10:40 UTC 1998

Heh.  That used to be something the *ACLU* was blamed for.
Right before I moved to NYC, the influence of civil libertarians
like Tomas Szasz was responsible for releasing hundreds of
mental patients onto the streets of the city.  The argument,
which I happen to agree with, was that you violate the rights
of a patient when you forcibly hospitalize (=incarcerate) him
or her for an indefinite period of time when no crime has
been committed.  The result, unfortunately, was what were
called "bag ladies" at the time and "homeless people" now.
New Yorkers of the period (mid-'70s) have many "amusing"
stories about people like the man who used to put a picture
of himself on the wall outside Grand Central and then kneel
down on the sidewalk and pray to it.  As immediately became
evident, releasing the unjustly incarcerated prisoners was
only half the solution, and no one wanted to pay for the
other half.  It is incredible to me that we're *still* trying
to figure it out 25 years later.  The ACLU are at least
trying.  They were right then, and they're right now, imho.

response 105 of 404:

Oct 21 10:57 UTC 1998

I doubt any (well, OK, in America we specialize in odd extremes, so incredibly
few) fringe right wing churches would support or tolerate aborting "gay gene"
fetuses.  I suspect that such organizations will say that "God is testing"
such children, and if they successfully resist the urge to *be* gay, they
stand a better chance of getting into Heaven.

response 107 of 404:

Oct 21 14:03 UTC 1998

#105> If you'd asked me seveal years ago, Scott, I'd've probably doubted that
any fringe Christian group would picket funerals of gay people, too. There's
always one whacko out there somewhere, which is what you allow for in your
parenthetical.

#104> As abhorrent as I would find such abortions personally, I would rather
that a mother abort a fetus she knows she won't be able to unconditionally
love, than to give birth to it, if that's her choice.

response 109 of 404:

Oct 21 19:16 UTC 1998

Re #104, 106, 107, and 108:
    That makes five of us.

response 111 of 404:

Oct 21 20:02 UTC 1998

Yeah, #100, I hear they also revel in famine and starvation and homelessness
and racism and genocide.