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From: bstempleton@watmath.UUCP (Brad Templeton)
Newsgroups: net.women,net.politics
Subject: Abortion is three issues, not one.
Message-ID: <5475@watmath.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 3-Jul-83 13:26:34 EDT
Article-I.D.: watmath.5475
Posted: Sun Jul  3 13:26:34 1983
Date-Received: Sun, 3-Jul-83 23:50:30 EDT
References: <415@umcp-cs.UUCP>
Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 42

I don't know if we want to go into this again, but I get tired of
people thinking of abortion as a single issue.   It is three distinct,
and almost indepependant issues.


The first one "Pro Life vs. Anti-Life" is really a non-issue.  Just
about everybody will say they are "pro life".  Of course, just about
everybody isn't purely pro-life since they (if they are still alive)
believe it's ok to kill lower forms of life for food.  Thus they draw
a line somewhere.

Then there is the pro/anti choice issue.  That's the real issue if you
want to talk about "Should abortion be legal?"  In my opinion, no matter
what the opinions are on the third issue I will list, the fact that
there are large bodies of people for either side indicate that this is
not the sort of thing you put into law.   The issue is 100% a religious one
(because it revolves on the "is human life sacred" question) based on
intangibles and thus shouldn't be in law.

The final issue is pro/anti abortion.  This is the real issue if you want
to talk about "Is abortion right?"   If you want to talk morals, fine, but
don't confuse them with law.

Although most people will claim they are pro-life, the other two issues
are somewhat independant.  For example, you can be pro choice and pro
abortion, in which case you think that abortions are ok and people should
have the right of choice in religious issues.   Likewise you can think
that people should have the choice, but that abortion is wrong and not
for you.  Further we have a fairly small group of people who don't
believe in rights but think abortion is ok.  Finally there are those
who think that abortion is bad and should be illegal.

While two of these camps are large the pro-choice/anti-abortion camp is
fair sized as well, but just not that vocal on the issue.  This should
show people that there are several issues here.

As to the morals debate?  We've taken this dead horse and draw, quartered,
hung, burned and flogged it into its component atoms.   Nobody gets
convinced by this and almost everybody has heard the arguments.  Let's
not get into it again.
-- 
	Brad Templeton - Waterloo, Ont. (519) 886-7304