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Path: utzoo!watmath!saquigley
From: saquigley@watmath.UUCP (Sophie Quigley)
Newsgroups: net.abortion
Subject: Re: Beginning of personhood
Message-ID: <9472@watmath.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 18-Oct-84 19:26:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: watmath.9472
Posted: Thu Oct 18 19:26:00 1984
Date-Received: Sun, 21-Oct-84 09:27:42 EDT
References: <157@scc.UUCP>, <343@hou2b.UUCP>
Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 32

>
>Seriously, why draw the line at birth?
>
>A child/baby is dependent upon its parents for some time.  Why not
>permit "choice" beyond birth?  If the parents choose to get rid of
>the baby why shouldn't they have the right. (By the way, this is not
>a new notion: it was quite popular for this to be done especially to
>one of the sexes in past civilizations.)  After all, a baby has
Still popular (but illegal) in rural china from what I have heard.

>very little ability to defend itself,  isn't really much of a
>"person", can't vote, etc. Must mooch off the parents, ie live in
>their house, eat their food etc. Also some of the little twirps are
>really accidental, aren't they?  I'd like some comment on what is so
>special about birth other than it being a well defined time period.
>After all, there isn't much difference in the entity some time
>before and after birth, as far a science has been able to
>determine.
There is one main difference: before birth the child lives inside another
person's body and if that person just does not want an intruder in her
body, then she has a right to get rid of it.  This argument is not valid
anymore after birth.

>You may say that the baby could be adopted- however, this casts
>aspersions on the parents and in addition causes an increased tax
>burden on us "innocent" "pure" and "celibate" tax payers!
>
>					gary
huh?

Sophie Quigley
...!{clyde,ihnp4,decvax}!watmath!saquigley