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From: brianp@shark.UUCP (Brian Peterson)
Newsgroups: net.abortion
Subject: Re: When does life begin?  IT DOESN'T!
Message-ID: <1191@shark.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 16-Dec-84 06:51:37 EST
Article-I.D.: shark.1191
Posted: Sun Dec 16 06:51:37 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 18-Dec-84 03:24:14 EST
References: <1203@bbncca.ARPA>, <139@spp1.UUCP>
Organization: Tektronix, Wilsonville OR
Lines: 52

XY    From: johnston@spp1.UUCP
XY    > ...
XY    > Given that, moral issues, like abortion, ought to be decided on criteria
XY    > that are the most important & meaningful for human beings & their lives
XY    > as we know them.  Fetuses may be complex organisms & biologically alive,
XY    > but it doesn't easily follow that, just because of that, they are human.
XY    > 						Cheers,
XY    > 						Ron Rizzo
XY    
XY    I'm a little confused. In the first sentence is a phrase "human beings &
XY    their lives". I've always assummed that I was a member of this class. Yet
XY    I find from the second sentence that while a fetus, though complex and
XY    alive, I may not have been human. Since I don't recall passing an
XY    acceptance test, I'm beginning to get worried. If there is criteria for
XY    becoming a human from a complex, biologically alive organism of homo
XY    sapiens, I'd better apply. After all, I've been lying on my resume.
XY     			Mike Johnston

I think you are more than a little confused; you seem to have missed
the whole point.
If you metabolize, etc. then you are a life.
If you have the right type of DNA, you are of the species homo-sapiens.
Now, let us suppose that someone took a spoon and stirred your
cerebrum (or was it cerebelum?) and you were no MORE
than a metabolizing entity with the right type of DNA.
There is now something missing.
That something is what we (Ron Rizzo up there, and I, at least)
are talking about.
Life (metabolizing, etc) is no more relevant to what we are than
hardware is to a particular program being run.
A particular set of DNA is no more important than a random 
molecule of oxygen, or a random configuration of a Rubik's cube,
simply because there are so many of them.  They only are useful
as quantities.
What we are is something more abstract than life or DNA.
A fetus has nothing more than life and DNA, both of negligible
value as a particular instance.

Now, this something that we are does not get given to us,
especially not at a marked point.  Neither are there
simpleton tests that make binary decisions on whether you
have this (intentionally left vague in this article) quality.
Yet it is obvious to all that there is this something, a
characteristic which sets us beyond most other animals
on this planet, and beyond those vegetables which happen
to still have homo-sapiens DNA in them.
It is this characteristic which is important, which
fetuses don't have, and which anti-abortionists seem
to have no concerns for.

Brian Peterson  {ucbvax, ihnp4, }  !tektronix!shark!brianp
				    ^         ^