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