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.
   

response 154 of 404:

Oct 24 17:03 UTC 1998

Senna> If you honestly don't see how saying, "Both sides are stupid" is an
insult, then it's pointless to discuss it further.

insult, n. 2. any gross abuse offered to another, either by words or actions;
any act or speech meant to hurt the feelings or self-respect of another.

That definition does not qualify "true" or "untrue." I think nearly everyone
would agree that my calling you ugly would be an insult, whether or not you
are.

There, I said it was pointless to discuss it further, and then discussed it
further. Why? Because it amuses me to do pointless things, and besides, it's
as on-topic as six-screen diatribes on abortion in the GLB conference... or
did this cross-linked? =}

response 156 of 404:

Oct 25 00:51 UTC 1998

Jans *really* smart and cool but I dont think anyone here understands him.

response 158 of 404:

Oct 25 02:50 UTC 1998

I would like to see some substantiation for this 8 cell limit for being
capable of being made twins or quadruplets. Why not 4 or 16 cells?

response 160 of 404:

Oct 25 15:19 UTC 1998

That seems hardly worth debating next to "I don't think anyone
has a right to life" (in #157). Why not throw out liberty and the
pursuit of happiness while you're at it?

response 162 of 404:

Oct 25 23:04 UTC 1998

ah, gridlock. :P

response 164 of 404:

Oct 26 06:36 UTC 1998

Suzie, can we avoid the Hero Worship at the expense of insulting the rest of
the conference?

Kenton> #157 is meant as support for your argument, but seems like support
against it. You ask, "If you were swimming to shore from a shipwreck, and had
a child as added weight, would you let the child die to save your own life?
Some would and some wouldn't." This is *exactly* the position most women who
seek abortions are in: Frequently, they've become pregnant by accident, and
they have a choice: Abort the child, or risk their career, their education,
or whatever else... in short, either drown the child, or risk letting the
child drag you down. I know of at least two women in this situation: Pregnant
early in their college career, they chose to carry the child to term; now,
without a college degree, they can't find a decent, well-paying job, so the
child is destined to live with the mother in the lower classes... the child
has metaphrocially dragged the mother down. Now, both of these women chose,
of their own free will, the baby over the degree... in short, they chose to
risk drowning themselves in order to save the child. But, as you yourself
point out, others would chose to let the child drown. You seem to have no
judgment call one way or the other; you make it a statement of fact. I agree;
the judgment call is up to the mother.

A woman who is pregnant and doesn't want to have a child has two choices:
(1) Abort the fetus
(2) Bring the fetus to term and either raise it or put it up for adoption.

Let's look at (2). If she chooses to raise it herself, she needs to examine
the likelihood that it will significantly affect her livelihood, which impacts
her happiness, which impacts her ability to raise the child. Perhaps she will
decide that the child is worth the sacrifices, and that she can look beyond
the problems to give it the love it needs to thrive. Perhaps she will decide
that the child is an albatross, and resent it for as long as it lives. If she
chooses to put it up for adoption, she risks placing it in an already
overfilled and overbureaucracized adoption system; perhaps it will find a good
home, perhaps a terrible one, perhaps it will wind up in foster care, hopping
from dysfunctional setting to dysfunctional setting. When the child is older,
perhaps it will love it adoptive parents as if they were birth parents, or
perhaps it will pine for the mother that abandoned it, in its view, and wonder
who she was.

Let's look at (1). Perhaps she will walk away from the clinic and never think
of the child again. Much more likely, she will lie awake wondering what the
child would have been like, whether she will ever get the chance to h ave a
child when she wants to... she might hear the voice of the child as she tries
to sleep; she might picture it in her nightmares. Abortion takes reality and
makes it potential, and we are left wondering about the potential, stuck in
a quagmyre of "what ifs."

I am not female. I am not ever going to be in the position to choose. But I've
talked to women who've gotten pregnant accidentally, both those who chose to
abort and those who chose to carry through. Above is an amalgam of precisely
the questions that each of them went through in their decision.

Anyone who thinks that the decision to abort is easy, or made lightly, is
sadly mistaken. Perhaps there are a few women out there who use it as a form
of birth control. But of the women I've talked to, who've been pregnant and
then, by their own volition, become unpregnant, the decision was filled with
introspection, guilt, and meditation. 

"Do you think women want to kill their own babies?
 If you got your own twisted baggage, then, maybe."
              -- Consolidated

This is entirely different that ridding society of undesirables. Abortion is
about a mother choosing between what she perceives of being a trio of
unpleasant choices: Abort, raise, adopt. (Abortions that aren't medically
necissitated, that is.)

Comparing that to murderers (as Jan does) or to social undesirables, such as
the elderly and gays (as Kenton does) belittles both the issue of abortion,
and the relevant issues of crime management and fringe members of society.