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