Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site cmu-cs-spice.ARPA Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxt!houxm!mtuxo!mtunh!mtung!mtunf!ariel!vax135!cornell!uw-beaver!tektronix!hplabs!pesnta!greipa!decwrl!decvax!genrad!panda!talcott!harvard!seismo!rochester!cmu-cs-pt!cmu-cs-spice!tdn From: tdn@cmu-cs-spice.ARPA (Thomas Newton) Newsgroups: net.abortion Subject: Re: freedom/responsibility Message-ID: <385@cmu-cs-spice.ARPA> Date: Fri, 5-Jul-85 18:04:24 EDT Article-I.D.: cmu-cs-s.385 Posted: Fri Jul 5 18:04:24 1985 Date-Received: Thu, 11-Jul-85 06:34:52 EDT Organization: Carnegie-Mellon University, CS/RI Lines: 49 > It's only "wrong" (i.e. murder) if the object of the abortion is a living > independent human being, and we know that the objects of abortion, the > fetuses, cannot sustain themselves outside of the environment of the womb, > thus they cannot be "murdered" Are you also suggesting that it is not wrong to kill newly-born babies, since they are not capable of feeding themselves? For that matter, if a human must be "independent" in order to have the right to live, why is it wrong to kill anyone on this planet? The only living things on this planet which can claim to be able to survive without aid from other living things in the environment are plants and a few bacteria which obtain energy from anaerobic chemical reactions. Take away all the plants and the animals (including us) will drop dead very quickly. > The real center of the abortion controversy is "Are the fetuses living > things, the termination of which would be 'murder'?" Having lost that > central issue, . . . A fetus is a living thing. It's need to be provided with warmth, nutrients, oxygen, etc. does not make it any less so. Do you think that you are 'dead' merely because you depend upon oxygen that is produced by plant life? A human fetus has human chromosomes that are different from the ones which belong to its parents. It is not a 'tissue outgrowth' or an 'organ' of the woman's body, but a separate individual. Furthermore, doctors are more and more coming to regard the fetus as a treatable patient in the womb. There was an article in one of the news magazines a while back discussing how this was a potential threat to the pro-choice movement. It seems to me that the pro-choice side has lost this central issue, and the loss is becoming more and more obvious with every medical gain. This is probably why so many pro-choice arguments fall into one of these classes: (a) If I don't want the baby, it must be "trespassing", and therefore it's OK to kill it (analogue to property rights) (b) It may be a living human being (human = Homo sapiens), but it isn't HUMAN (HUMAN = Homo sapiens + certain features that vary with the person posting the argument), and thus it isn't entitled to HUMAN rights, and thus it's OK to kill it. I don't think that either argument is convincing; other people think the opposite. But most of the posts from both sides do implicitly acknowledge the fact that the fetus is a living organism which is different from (even if dependent upon) its parents. -- Thomas Newton Thomas.Newton@cmu-cs-spice.ARPA