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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!sdcsvax!dcdwest!ittvax!decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!cybvax0!mrh
From: mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz)
Newsgroups: net.abortion
Subject: Re: An abortion story
Message-ID: <246@cybvax0.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 28-Nov-84 10:52:05 EST
Article-I.D.: cybvax0.246
Posted: Wed Nov 28 10:52:05 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 1-Dec-84 19:27:12 EST
References: <44@tove.UUCP> <11200002@rocksvax.UUCP>
Reply-To: mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz)
Organization: Cybermation, Inc., Cambridge, MA
Lines: 35
Summary: 

I'm appalled that Liz copied that shocking abortion narrative in here.
This is a classical fallacy of the worst sort: appeal to the prejudices of
the audience.  I'm sure I could use those same knee-jerk responses to
mutillation and the like to turn you all into vegetarians.  (And probably
also make you reluctant to eat even plants!  :-))

And the incredible errors of anthropomorphism committed to shock us also
infuriate me.  Such fanciful interpretations.  I'm sure they'd also
interpret the slack-jawed gape of a brain-dead adult as a "silent scream"
also, if it suited their purposes.  "Retreating to the far end of the womb"
my ass.  If the fetus had happend to get sucked up immediately it would
instead have been "helplessly sucked towards doom and destruction."
And let's not forget that there might have been editing: selection from many
films of abortions of whichever parts (or whole) made for the most grisly
description.

I say errors of anthropomorphism  because it obviously is erroneous to ascribe
adult human feelings and reactions to a fetus, the same way it is erroneous
to ascribe lust to that fetus.  A fetus at that stage is indistinguishable
from a whole range of things we would routinely classify as subhuman:
an ape fetus, a fetus without a brain, or a fetus with a defect that will cause
it to abort itself spontaneously.

Finally, the film doesn't argue against abortions, as it may have been
mis-represented to do.  It argues against "inhumane abortions".  Just as
many people consider it inhumane to kill animals in gruesome ways, but
humane to kill them with an injection, so that film AT MOST is an argument
to abort in a more "humane" manner.  I have no objection to that, providing
the "humane" method is no more risky to the woman.  But anti-abortionists
want to misinterpret this: it gives them a feeling that theirs is a
righteous cause.  They need that feeling to justify oppressing other adults
with their beliefs.
-- 

Mike Huybensz		...decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!cybvax0!mrh