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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