Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site pyuxd.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!gamma!pyuxww!pyuxd!rlr From: rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Rich Rosen) Newsgroups: net.abortion Subject: Re: Human beings Message-ID: <1220@pyuxd.UUCP> Date: Tue, 16-Jul-85 07:37:37 EDT Article-I.D.: pyuxd.1220 Posted: Tue Jul 16 07:37:37 1985 Date-Received: Thu, 18-Jul-85 04:49:28 EDT References: <388@cmu-cs-spice.ARPA> Organization: Whatever we're calling ourselves this week Lines: 36 >>Human beings are alive. Living organisms of OUR species, whose rights we >>respect. Fetuses (funny you forgot to bring them up) are not. > You're claiming that for a person to be a human being, his/her rights must be > respected by the society in which s/he lives? By this definition, blacks in > the Old South, Jews in Nazi Germany, and dissidents in the Soviet Union are > not human beings. No, I'm claiming that ALL human beings have rights, and movements and governments that deny rights to select groups of people are heinous and vile. However... > Fetuses ARE living organisms of our species, i.e. human beings. It is true > that we do not respect their rights, but that does not make them less human. What makes them less than human is the fact that they are not living. Which I already discussed in detail: if they were living, could they exist outside of the parasitic mode in which they occupy a woman's womb? The fact that you ignored and glossed over and forgot that whole portion of the text in favor of manipulative non-analogies about repressive governments that sound real good and persuasive, but in reality have little to do with the argument. (Paging Mr. Samuelson...) > Gee, a perfect justification for every crime! When the police catch up with > a murderer, s/he can claim that the person s/he murdered was not a human > being. > And why was this person not a human being? Because the murderer clearly did > not respect his/her rights!! See any resemblance to "Catch-22"? Fetuses are not human beings because they do not qualify as living, for reasons stated above. Therefore they are not necessarily entitled to human rights. No Cath-22 there at all, no matter how much you want (and pray?) for there to be one. -- Anything's possible, but only a few things actually happen. Rich Rosen pyuxd!rlr