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From: ucbesvax.turner@ucbcad.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Re: Re: The Nature of Rights - (nf)
Message-ID: <38@ucbcad.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 22-Jul-83 07:26:17 EDT
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Posted: Fri Jul 22 07:26:17 1983
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#R:umcp-cs:-50100:ucbesvax:11400004:000:4381
ucbesvax!turner    Jul 14 02:08:00 1983


OK, liz, let's get down to it.  If the moral question of abortion is to
be legislated -- note that it is not, at the moment -- what is the proper
legal status of someone who then commits an act of abortion?

I will accept for the sake of argument that a fetus -- no, technically
that is incorrect -- rather, the product of conception (POC), is human,
and therefore has a human right to life which should be protected by
any just government.

(I will admit to simply not knowing whether the POC is human.  To date it
from conception seems stretched; that event is far from instantaneous.
But then, neither is the event of birth, which is what many pro-choice
advocates mark as the beginning.)

Now, if a POC is taken from its uterine environment and left to die (as it
inevitably would, except late in term), is this:

	1. manslaughter,
	2. negligent homicide,
	3. or premeditated murder?

If, on the other hand, it is killed (by a skilled accomplice who would no
longer be a doctor, but an "abortionist"), before or after being taken from
the uterine environment, is this a more serious crime?

Since the POC is human, and has a human right to life, does that mean that
it necessarily has a right to a uterine environment for as long as that
environment is needed for its survival?

That is to say, does this POC not only own its own body, but also its
mother's body for the duration of pregnancy?  In which case, how does it
come to lose it's property later, after it is born?  If not, why is the
mother required to provide this environment, if it in fact belongs to her?

What you seem to be missing, perhaps, is that human rights can, in some
situations, truly conflict, and that judgement must rest with those who
are vitally effected.

And, to be honest, I don't think that a judge (man or woman) in a court
of law is vitally effected by a woman's choice to end the life of a POC
inside her own body.  The women bearing the POC, and the POC itself, are
the vital participants.

The POC's participation is involuntary: it did not ask to be brought into
existence, and will not even address the question of whether it should
exist or not until it is many years out of the womb.

Thus, there is effectively one participant, one judge, over the bodies
of (at most) two human beings.  There is no sense in which the state
is mounting a defense either of itself or of other decision-making humans
when it prosecutes abortionists and women who have chosen to abort
(unless it is the unlikely circumstance of avoiding underpopulating
itself out of existence.)

Obviously, I don't expect you to address all of these issues, but I would
like to know just what sort of criminal element you think I might be
dealing with when I associated with women who might have had abortions.
What should the law be, and what should be the penalties compared to
those meted out for the degrees of murder listed above?  In the prevailing
system of indeterminate sentencing, should it be 1 to 5?  5 to 10? 10 to
life?  Life imprisonment?  The death penalty?

In any case, it should certainly not be a simple fine.  This could lead to
a truly barbarous situation in which *rich* women could afford abortions
far more easily than poor ones, and thus have a different moral standard
(by default) within their own social strata.  Since, for the law to be fair,
it must protect equally, wealth should be no object to the protection of a
POC's right to life.

After all, what good is a law if it is not a means of social control?  The
POC's of wealthy women must be as well protected as the POC's of poor women.

Which brings me to the subject of a neighborhood just about five miles to
the south of here, where the infant mortality rate is comparable to that
of many third world countries.  But perhaps that is a good place to stop
and think about your moral priorities, and the role of the state in
protecting rights.  If the state has a duty to protect the lives of POC's,
does this mean that it should provide free health services to any woman
who is pregnant?  Or again, do we have a system of punishments for women
who are criminally negligent in being poor when they conceive?  Certainly,
it is one of the tenets of the prevailing notion of human rights in the
U.S. that an able-bodied person who is poor is poor by choice.  Just take
a look at net.politics.

	Michael Turner
	ucbvax!ucbesvax.turner