From: utzoo!decvax!yale-com!brunix!gh Newsgroups: net.women Title: Re: pro-choice groups Article-I.D.: brunix.1836 Posted: Tue Mar 8 20:07:25 1983 Received: Wed Mar 9 05:52:16 1983 References: trsvax.225,tekmdp.1800 Okay, let's agree with trsvax!ljw that: ... Anti-abortionists (who are not "anti-choice", just "anti-abortionist") believe that the human fetus is a human being, and thus subject to the laws of the constitution (including the right not to be murdered), whereas pro-abortionists believe that the human fetus is not a human being, and thus the woman is free to deal with this "thing" attached to her as she sees fit. and also that: On abortion, surveys find that 73 percent want it limited to certain cases or banned. The question then is: What can we say about these people who want abortion "limited to certain cases" These people clearly believe the fetus is not human, or they could not justify abortion in cases of rape, mother's life in danger (versus certain death for the fetus), etc. When Cindy McMeekin says that 80% of Americans are pro-choice, what she really means is that 80% favor some cases of abortion, and therfore must not believe the fetus to be human. (This agrees with other statistics I've seen: 20% believe abortion to be murder.) On the other hand, these people are not pro-choice either (thus Cindy is technically wrong), as they seem to want to deny abortion in many cases even though they don't consider it murder. >From the above figures, it seems that about 53% of Americans deny the premises of both sides. So what DO they believe? One possibily, touched on before in this debate, is that they believe that pregnancy should be a punishment for those immoral enough to have sex for recreation only, and abortion allows them to escape the punishment (as if having an abortion were a picnic!); so it's okay in cases of rape, etc. I find it hard to believe that this could be a majority opinion! Any other ideas? Graeme Hirst !decvax!brunix!gh gh.brown@udel-relay