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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!floyd!harpo!ihnp4!ihuxq!ken
From: ken@ihuxq.UUCP (ken perlow)
Newsgroups: net.women
Subject: Re: Abortion
Message-ID: <712@ihuxq.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 27-Feb-84 11:21:40 EST
Article-I.D.: ihuxq.712
Posted: Mon Feb 27 11:21:40 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 28-Feb-84 07:00:04 EST
References: <5823@decwrl.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Naperville, IL
Lines: 30

--
Decwrl!lipman argues that human life begins at conception because
the fertilized egg is, at this point, a human cell.  Maybe it is,
but so is a teratoma.  (A teratoma is a kind of cancer which has
the cell differentiation that occurs in embryos, but it is wild and
disorganized.)  Should the "right to life" apply to teratomas?
They are potential human beings, too.  Well, this is the sort of
logic you can get into if you don't consider viability of the fetus.

It's pretty well established that during the 1st trimester the fetus
has not evolved (remember "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny"?) past
a reptilian stage.  Thus, abortion during the 1st trimester can be
compared to killing a snake.  A snake with the potential to be a
human being, to be sure.  But if you get into this "potential"
nonsense, then birth control becomes murder.

As a man, I can't really understand what it means to get pregnant.
I have to make an analogy to cancer (I am told there is some bio-
chemical similarity).  I like having the right to remove a
cancer, even a benign one that might for some strange reason do me
good.  This is the only posting I'll do on this subject, in the
interest of sanity, but I'll continue by mail with anyone who feels
the need to.  I'm pro-choice AND I VOTE!
-- 
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JE MAINTIENDRAI   ***** *****
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