From: utzoo!decvax!duke!bcw
Newsgroups: net.women
Title: Re: There is nothing wrong with Abortion
Article-I.D.: duke.2977
Posted: Sun Feb  6 18:06:05 1983
Received: Mon Feb  7 05:47:31 1983
References: we13.393,watmath.4470

From:	Bruce C. Wright @ Duke University
Re:	Abortion topic

I had promised myself that I wouldn't get involved with this, but some recent
comments by Pete Wilson are too far out of line to go uncommented-upon.

It's certainly true that an excess of selfishness is one of the main problems
of our current society, and that one shouldn't decide an entity's right to
exist solely because of its degree of awareness of its condition, but it is
not right to try to decide what the *human* species should do based on one's
(biased) perceptions of how some arbitrary other species does things (there
is an amazing amount of diversity in the world and one could prove absolutely
anything with this argument).

For example, saying that mammals other than man do not have sex for fun
is misleading on several grounds.  First of all, it is an extremely teleo-
logical view of animal behavior which I'm highly doubtful is justified
since most animals do not appear to be as aware of the consequences of
actions as are humans.  Secondly, the implication is that animals (for what-
ever reasons) do not or are incapable of "having fun."  This is possible,
but is somewhat like trying to tell if an alien species has intelligence.
The evidence is that mammals have a certain amount of behavior (especially
social behavior) which appears to give them what might as well be said to
be analogous to "fun," whatever that is.  Thirdly, certainly many mammals
have some forms of sexual behavior which cannot be directly connected with
procreation:  for example, ape and monkey grooming behavior and play seems
to have at least some sexual components.  Also, many mammals will masturbate
or engage in other sexual behavior under appropriate circumstances.  Some
higher animals (including both mammals and birds) even have behavior patterns
similar to human homosexual behavior patterns - sexual behavior between two
members of the same sex.

All of this has relatively little bearing on how humans should behave.  One
can find "support" amoung other species for practically any view you  can
name - what should matter is what's right for *us*, not what's right for
*them*.

Grumble, grumble.

			Bruce C. Wright @ Duke University