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From: stevev@tekchips.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.abortion
Subject: Re: Re: Morality and Democracy
Message-ID: <172@tekchips.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 31-Dec-84 20:32:09 EST
Article-I.D.: tekchips.172
Posted: Mon Dec 31 20:32:09 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 3-Jan-85 04:22:25 EST
References: <540@wucs.UUCP> <223@looking.UUCP> <132@tekchips.UUCP> <10367@watmath.UUCP> <156@tekchips.UUCP> <423@mhuxt.UUCP>
Organization: Tektronix, Beaverton OR
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> > What I am suggesting to people with pro-choice leanings is that the next
> > time you post an argument about abortion, try substituting something like
> > "slavery" into your argument in place of "abortion".  If the modified
> > argument makes no sense, then consider not posting it.
> 
> This is ridiculous.  How can pro-choicers argue that abortion is NOT immoral
> if we can only use arguements which still make sense when we substitute
> something which we all agree is immoral (slavery) for abortion.  Could you
> argue that whistling in public should be allowed if you had to use
> arguements which still made sense when they were about mass murder?

I do not discourage the posting of arguments that abortion is (or is not)
immoral.  What I discourage is the posting of arguments that beg the
question of whether a fetus is human, has rights, etc.  Arguments about
these issues (of which there have been many in this newsgroup, and
appropriately so) are at a level for which the slavery analogy does not
apply.  Whether a slave is a human with rights does not depend on whether
a fetus' heart is beating at 5 weeks, etc.

As an example of an argument that DOES beg the question, consider:

> The arguement that anti-abortion laws are enforced morality means that
> anti-abortionists are attempting to enforce THEIR view of what is moral
> on everyone else, NOT that the laws simply enforce some absolute moral
> standard.

I understand the argument; it makes perfect sense if you assume that
the unborn have no right to live.  But, imagine a slave-owner in the
1850's saying an analagous thing about slavery.  His argument would be
that it is an infringement on his rights to be not allowed to own slaves.
He begs the question of whether a slave has rights.  Similarly, the
argument in the above paragraph begs the question of whether the unborn
have rights.  It makes little sense unless one assumes that the unborn
do not have the right to live.

I never meant to raise slavery as an issue here.  What I want to raise
is the issue of the large number of postings of late that implicitly
start with the assumption that the unborn do (or do not) have the right
to live, and then go on to discuss how inflexible and immoral people are
who believe the other.

			Steve Vegdahl