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From: pmd@cbscc.UUCP (Paul Dubuc)
Newsgroups: net.abortion
Subject: Re: Whether the Fetus is Human
Message-ID: <1986@cbscc.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 13-Mar-84 14:53:48 EST
Article-I.D.: cbscc.1986
Posted: Tue Mar 13 14:53:48 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 14-Mar-84 19:15:50 EST
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Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories , Columbus
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from Jack Waugh
>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.

So what is this really saying as far as who can be killed and who
can't?  From whose perspective is the choice involving the "lesser
evil" to be determined?

You seem to be saying that one person may decide whether or not
to kill something, and it doesn't matter whether or not that something
is a human being.  Can this ethic be applied consistently?  Is the
mother also justified in killing her 1 year old if, from her perspective,
it seems to involve a lesser evil than any alternatives?

I think that proscription of killing must be rooted in the *identity*
of the victim (i.e. human being), not in someone else's judgment of
whether or not the victim should live.  What is to prevent such
subjective judgement from being applied in an arbitrary manner?
When would we be justified in interfering in a person's attempts to
kill another?  (usurping their judgement as to what is the "lesser evil").

The question of whether or not the fetus is a human is not irrelevant to
whether or not the mother has the right to kill it.  If it is, then whether
or not you or I are humans is also irrelevant to one who may wish to
kill us.

Paul Dubuc