From: utzoo!decvax!harpo!eagle!mhtsa!alice!hou5f!hou5d!houxz!ihnp4!ihnp1!dolan
Newsgroups: net.women
Title: Re: Slippery Slope
Article-I.D.: ihnp1.164
Posted: Mon Jan 31 10:27:16 1983
Received: Tue Feb  1 08:31:23 1983
Reply-To: dolan@ihnp1.UUCP (Mike Dolan)

The indication by Mr. Knight that my "Rational Argument Against
Abortion"  is faulty because of a "slippery slope" logical fallacy
is inapplicable.  Mr. Knight alludes to "adding" tiny bits of black
pigment to white paint to gradually turn it black.  I specifically
state that the only things that the unborn child gets from its
mother during the nine months of pregnancy are food, oxygen, waste
removal, and physical security.  Nothing else is added.

If the addition of food or oxygen to a growing unborn child can
"gradually turn it human", then at what point can we say that a born
child achieves humanity?  For that matter, how can we say that we
ourselves have achieved humanity, for we all continue to eat and
breathe.  

Or is it that the physical form of the unborn child has not yet
reached what we would like to consider human form?  The physical
form of a newborn child is not the form of the teenage child, nor
that of the adult.  My physical form is not that of Muhammad Ali,
nor that of Peggy Fleming.  Which of us is not human?  Do hands and
feet have to be fully developed for a child to be human?  The
genital organs of human beings are not fully developed until
adolescence.  Are we not human beings until we reach adolescence? 
And why should we consider the development of hands and feet any
differently than we consider the development of any other part of
the human body?

I'm sorry, but the "slippery slope" argument does not apply here.  
The only things "added" to a growing unborn child are oxygen and
food.  Those same things are added to each of us daily.

Mike Dolan
Bell Labs Rm 1B-226
Naperville-Wheaton Road
Naperville, IL 60566