Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1a 12/4/83; site rlgvax.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!floyd!harpo!seismo!rlgvax!jack From: jack@rlgvax.UUCP (Jack Waugh) Newsgroups: net.abortion Subject: Whether the Fetus is Human Message-ID: <1788@rlgvax.UUCP> Date: Thu, 8-Mar-84 18:40:35 EST Article-I.D.: rlgvax.1788 Posted: Thu Mar 8 18:40:35 1984 Date-Received: Sat, 10-Mar-84 08:26:03 EST Organization: CCI Office Systems Group, Reston, VA Lines: 27 I'm pretty sure it's S. I. Hiakawa's book (I'm not sure if I have his name spelled right -- the Senator from Hawaii) *Language in Thought and Action* that gives the example of the squirrel. The question is: if a man walks around a tree and a squirrel climbs around the trunk of the tree, keeping always on the side opposite the man, has the man walked around the squirrel? Some people will argue vehemently that the answer is yes, others that it is no. Both camps will think they are arguing about a squirrel, a tree, and a man. In fact, all they are arguing about is what "around" means, which has no importance at all. In fact, I would say not only no importance, but no meaning. This is how I see the question, posed in this forum by anti- abortion arguers, of whether the fetus is human. You can call it (or her, if you please) human or not, but so what? I believe in taking its life if that's what the mother chooses. You seem to hold human life sacred. I beleive, rather, that the correct action is that that leads to the greater Good (which is to say, less Evil). In most of the possible sets of circumstances, different people will disagree on which route is correct on even that basis, because different people will place different valuations on the evils and advantages of the alternatives.