Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site cmu-cs-cad.ARPA
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxj!mhuxn!houxm!ihnp4!zehntel!hplabs!hao!seismo!rochester!cmu-cs-pt!cmu-cs-cad!mjc
From: mjc@cmu-cs-cad.ARPA (Monica Cellio)
Newsgroups: net.abortion
Subject: Re: An abortion story
Message-ID: <41@cmu-cs-cad.ARPA>
Date: Mon, 3-Dec-84 18:19:12 EST
Article-I.D.: cmu-cs-c.41
Posted: Mon Dec  3 18:19:12 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 6-Dec-84 05:36:09 EST
Organization: Carnegie-Mellon University, CS/RI
Lines: 43

Forgive me if a lot of what I am about to say is old; I'm new to this net.

[Gerald Owens]
>	We normally restrict the criminal's right to control his
>body to prevent him from harming others, for a fixed period of time, and
>nobody objects.  It's nine months of the woman's inconvenience vs. the
>LIFE of another human being.  Life is more valuable than property.

If I have taken reasonable precautions (abstinense is not necessarily
'reasonable', though it is probably safe), I have done nothing wrong to cause
me to become pregnant.  Contrast this with a criminal, who has been convicted
of doing some wrong and is thus being PUNISHED.  Why should I be punished for
something that might not be my fault?  At least suspected criminals get a
trial.

As for the folks who contend that any pro-choice person is a raving murderer:
If I am pregnant and don't want to be burdened with it (more on why this
isn't merely an issue of 'convenience' in a minute), I feel I have the right
to rid myself of the burden.  Now, if you can devise some method of keeping
the thing 'alive' after its removal, feel free to do so!  If you can't, too
bad.

An unplanned pregnancy can do horrible things to a woman's life.  In many
cases her career is shot to hell, and if she's not married that probably
means (1) she can't support the kid anyway (without a job) and (2) she may
end up on welfare or some such in the process.  All this without compensation
for the time and work status she loses, compensation for the use of her body
against her will, or indeed any effort whatsoever to repair the damage done
by the government that would force her into the situation!  Come now.  Do you
really think this is right?  Is it any different from, say, telling a
16-year-old (either sex) that s/he has to give up everything and take care 
of baby brother because mom and dad died suddenly?  (The person in 
question might do this anyway, of course, but what right have you got to 
force him/her?)

When you're imposing your morality and causing harm in the process, you had
better have better reasons than 'because I believe it is wrong'.

						-Dragon

-- 
UUCP: ...seismo!ut-sally!ut-ngp!lll-crg!dragon
ARPA: monica.cellio@cmu-cs-cad or dragon@lll-crg