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!linus!decvax!harpo!whuxlm!whuxl!houxm!mhuxt!mhuxr!ulysses!gamma!pyuxww!pyuxd!rlr From: rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Rich Rosen) Newsgroups: net.abortion Subject: Re: \"Words mean what I pay them to mean . . .\" Message-ID: <1489@pyuxd.UUCP> Date: Wed, 14-Aug-85 00:21:31 EDT Article-I.D.: pyuxd.1489 Posted: Wed Aug 14 00:21:31 1985 Date-Received: Tue, 20-Aug-85 00:49:32 EDT References: <419@cmu-cs-spice.ARPA> Organization: Whatever we're calling ourselves this week Lines: 20 > 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. [NEWTON] I don't have to repeat for the readers how badly Mr. Newton argues. Many many people have mentioned how broad the definition of alive and not alive really is. Yet he INSISTS that it is a black and white dichotomy: if it's not alive, it's like a rock. Perhaps it could be not alive and like a virus. Maybe that's why you insisted that discussion of whether viruses are alive didn't belong here: to discuss it might do damage to your balck and white argument. -- "to be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best night and day to make you like everybody else means to fight the hardest battle any human being can fight and never stop fighting." - e. e. cummings Rich Rosen ihnp4!pyuxd!rlr