Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxl!houxm!hogpc!hogpd!hfavr From: hfavr@hogpd.UUCP (A.REED) Newsgroups: net.women,net.politics Subject: Re:Abortion Message-ID: <288@hogpd.UUCP> Date: Mon, 27-Feb-84 21:54:51 EST Article-I.D.: hogpd.288 Posted: Mon Feb 27 21:54:51 1984 Date-Received: Tue, 28-Feb-84 14:39:00 EST Lines: 22 squirt::arndt writes, QUOTE: It seems self-evident to me that even the first few cells after conception ARE human and ARE living. That is, they are not cat or dog cells, but genetically HUMAN. Also they are not non-living like a rock, but ARE alive. Ergo, whatever else abortion is it IS the stopping of human biological life. UNQUOTE. By this reasoning, cancer surgery is also the stopping of human life. Cancer cells are not cat or dog cells, but genetically HUMAN. Also they are not non-living like a rock, but ARE alive. I recall reading a satirical/futuristic novel some years ago (possibly by J. Sobran, although I am not sure about the author) in which, after the passage of a constitutional amendment protecting such forms of life, the attempt to remove a cancerous growth became a criminal conspiracy to commit murder. The protagonist encounters the still cancer-ridden would-be "murderer" in Yankee Stadium, which has been turned into a prison compound for such offenders. An alternative definition, originally proposed by Aristotle, is that human life is sapient life. It may still be an open question as to exactly when in development one becomes sapient, i. e. human, but at least we are sparmd the absurdity of an alleged equality of rights between a human being and a mindless cluster of cells.