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.