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!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!rochester!cmu-cs-pt!cmu-cs-spice!tdn
From: tdn@cmu-cs-spice.ARPA (Thomas Newton)
Newsgroups: net.abortion
Subject: Re: \"Words mean what I pay them to mean . . .\"
Message-ID: <419@cmu-cs-spice.ARPA>
Date: Sun, 11-Aug-85 01:42:24 EDT
Article-I.D.: cmu-cs-s.419
Posted: Sun Aug 11 01:42:24 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 14-Aug-85 03:09:50 EDT
Organization: Carnegie-Mellon University, CS/RI
Lines: 14

> Alive may be well defined. However the discussion about carrots, bacteria,
> etc being alive leads me to believe that the definition of alive has very
> little to do with the issue of abortion.

The only reason we were on the 'alive' issue at all is that Rich Rosen
kept insisting that fetuses are not alive despite biology to the contrary.
If you believe that ALIVE(fetus) = ALIVE(rock) = FALSE, you don't need to
grapple with the real issues; since non-living things don't have rights,
you can immediately jump to the conclusion that abortion is OK.  But the
problem with this argument is that the fetus IS a living thing, and so you
do need to grapple with the real issues after all.

                                        -- Thomas Newton
                                           Thomas.Newton@cmu-cs-spice.ARPA