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Path: utzoo!linus!wivax!decvax!harpo!seismo!rlgvax!cvl!umcp-cs!liz
From: liz@umcp-cs.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: Re: Against Abortion
Message-ID: <341@umcp-cs.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 30-Jun-83 16:07:34 EDT
Article-I.D.: umcp-cs.341
Posted: Thu Jun 30 16:07:34 1983
Date-Received: Fri, 1-Jul-83 01:04:29 EDT
References: <2284@csu-cs.UUCP>
Organization: Univ. of Maryland, Computer Science Dept.
Lines: 50


	From csu-cs!silver

	To paraphrase a generally rational sentiment:
				"If you can arbitrarily define a
				 fetus in the womb as a child, then
				 whose freedoms among ours is safe?"

I think more freedoms are risked by defining a fetus as not entirely
human -- it narrows the definition of what is human.  For example,
there is a proposal to allow infanticide in the cases of infants
up to three days old with birth defects (not just withhold life
support).  Another form of this proposal would require all infants
to pass some kind of test.  Where will you draw the line on what is
truly human?

	I'll go further than just retort, and remind you (briefly)
	of one rational argument FOR freedom of abortion: Humans
	differ from other animals primarily by their intellectual
	ability.  The fetal brain really starts to be human at
	about the sixth month of gestation.

Humans may differ >primarly< by their intellectual ability, but I
wouldn't want to define them this way.  It is too easy to start
marking the mentally retarded and the senile as non-human.

	... Before this time a fetus may LOOK human but, by one
	very unarguable measurement, it is NOT yet human, only
	potentially so -- the same as an unfertile egg.

No, not really the same.  Uninterupted (by disease or abortion),
the fetus will grow into a human child.  An unfertile egg cannot
grow without outside help (fertilization).

	Considering the violent differences of opinion in this
	debate, both sides must be willing to compromise rationally,
	looking at the evidence.

But on the pro-life side, abortion is viewed as killing.  It is
hard to view that a person has the right to kill anything human...

On the other hand, being pro-life should also include being for
the life of the woman.  A woman considering an abortion is in a
difficult situation, and her needs must not be overlooked.  Being
pro-life must mean considering her life as well (though not at the
expense of the life of her baby).

				-Liz

PS  I'm probably stiring up a hornet's nest...