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From: michaelm@3comvax.UUCP (Michael McNeil)
Newsgroups: net.abortion
Subject: Re: The Status of the Fetus and Its Rights
Message-ID: <233@3comvax.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 31-Dec-69 18:59:59 EDT
Article-I.D.: 3comvax.233
Posted: Wed Dec 31 18:59:59 1969
Date-Received: Sun, 29-Sep-85 06:46:27 EDT
References: <429@cmu-cs-spice.ARPA> <1546@pyuxd.UUCP> <998@brl-tgr.ARPA> <1597@pyuxd.UUCP> <1095@brl-tgr.ARPA> <214@3comvax.UUCP> <1476@brl-tgr.ARPA>
Organization: 3Com Corp; Mountain View, CA
Lines: 43

[ :=<< ]        (<- Shush! Line eater monster lurking!)  

> > So what that the ``genetic entity'' that you possess, Matt --
> > whether unique or not -- has just come into physical existence.  
> > At that moment it is still but a single quantity of the chemical
> > substance deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), located within a single
> > eucaryotic cell similar in all functional respects to an amoeba!  
> > . . .
> > Levity aside, the ``pro-life'' movement philosophically
> > maintains -- nay, *demands* -- that this single non-sentient
> > cell's ``human'' rights [outweigh] the rights of an adult human!  
> > [MICHAEL McNEIL]
> 
> You've got it!  ITS right to live outweighs HER right to kill it.
> [MATT ROSENBLATT]

This is the crux of the matter.  Pro-lifers weigh the life of a
single, unfeeling, nearly microscopic *cell* against the life of a
woman, and soberly declare that the scale tips toward the *cell*!  

If the stakes were trivial, since the pro-lifers are raising such
a fuss, I and no doubt many others would be inclined to give them
what they want, just to shut them up.  Raising this reaction is
precisely what they are they are trying to accomplish, of course.  

However, the stakes are not small.  Thousands of women's lives
depend, emotionally and physically, on the maintenance of their
right to personal privacy.  Because of this, we must oppose you.  

-- 

Michael McNeil
3Com Corporation     "All disclaimers including this one apply"
(415) 960-9367
..!ucbvax!hplabs!oliveb!3comvax!michaelm

        ... if "dead" matter has reared up this curious landscape
        of fiddling crickets, song sparrows, and wondering men, it
        must be plain even to the most devoted materialist that the
        matter of which he speaks contains amazing, if not dreadful
        powers, and may not impossibly be, as Hardy has suggested,
        "but one mask of many worn by the Great Face behind."  
                Loren Eiseley, *The Immense Journey*, 1946