From: utzoo!decvax!duke!unc!tim Newsgroups: net.women Title: Re: 10th anniversary Article-I.D.: unc.4566 Posted: Fri Jan 28 01:09:14 1983 Received: Sun Jan 30 08:42:41 1983 References: ihuxu.133 It is obviously not legitimate for a person to be allowed to make their own choice in a matter if it infringes on someone else's right to make such a choice. This fact is often used to support anti-abortion legislation, and was so used recently in this group. This is totally irrelevant, however. The issue in abortion is exactly whether or not the fetus is an "other", not whether or not it is OK to trample on someone else's rights. A fetus cannot communicate with human beings, or do anything on its own; it makes no contributions to society. Therefore, the only way that you can justify giving it the protection of the law is the belief that it has a "soul" and that this "soul" is the real reason that *anyone* deserves the protection of the law. The law, however, cannot recog- nize the existence of the soul, only the social utility of imposing order. The decision as to whether or not a fetus is human is totally up to the individual, since it must be set- tled on religious grounds. Therefore, abortion is *not* murder legally, although it may be morally. For the law to recognize the soul would be more harmful to society than to continue what is morally murder; it would mean the end of freedom of religion, since the state would then have to adopt some "official" doctrine on the soul. I often wonder what members of the new Right think the rest of us are. To argue that "abortion isn't right because it infringes on another's rights" implies that we were unaware that it isn't OK to make our own decisions indepen- dent of others' rights. I for one find this insulting. Tim Maroney unc!tim