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From: pmd@cbscc.UUCP (Paul Dubuc)
Newsgroups: net.abortion
Subject: Re: The Status of the Fetus and Its Rights (Pt. 3 of 4)
Message-ID: <5925@cbscc.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 17-Sep-85 20:25:58 EDT
Article-I.D.: cbscc.5925
Posted: Tue Sep 17 20:25:58 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 18-Sep-85 04:20:02 EDT
References: <429@cmu-cs-spice.ARPA> <1546@pyuxd.UUCP>
Reply-To: pmd@cbscc.UUCP (unix-Paul Dubuc,x7836,1L244,59472)
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories , Columbus
Lines: 102

>Standard Definition of Humanity
>
>..
>So defined, just when *would* that line dividing ``potential''
>from ``real'' humanity be crossed?  I believe that most parents
>who are *at all* sensitive to the bright new personality suddenly
>plunked into their midst would agree that the formation of such
>a personality must have substantially *predated* birth.  (I'm not
>being scientific here, I know, but science backs me up on this.)  
>
>Coming from the other direction, as noted before the cerebral
>cortex is the last of the major developments by the human fetus.  
>And it is *huge* -- when a baby is born, his or her entire body
>typically only weighs five or six times the weight of the brain!  
>It is clear that the embryo's major developmental effort during
>the mother's third trimester is taken up with growing the brain
>and cerebral cortex.  Only when *this* point has been reached,
>can we *honestly* suggest that a new human personality -- worthy
>of rights now and into the future -- exists and has taken root.  

Here you seem to switch back from the quality of the brain's functioning
to it's quantity (existence and size).  What would you say against
the argument that a newborn has about the same personality and
sentience level as a goldfish?  ("They EAT goldfish [Alive, even!]
don't they?" :-)).  Certainly it has less than the family dog.  So
why does it rank so much higher according to your criteria?  Or does
it?

Another question:  You seem to advocate the drawing of a general line
and six months gestation.  But shouldn't you have to consider each
individual fetus?  How large does the brain have to be?  What if
some cross the dividing line sooner than others or the doctors
are wrong in there calculations?  You are not playing with a dividing
line of little consequence.  It is the line between life and death
of some human beings at the hands of others.  If we expect to have that
line maintained by more than just asthetics, economics and such, it
has to be anchored to a undisputable unique event.  An event not
defined with criterion that may just as easily apply (where it not
for asthetics) to other groups of human beings.

>I therefore come down on the side of those who would place *some*
>restrictions on abortion during the woman's third trimester (e.g.,
>attempting to save the now-realized human form), but *no* restraint
>prior to the third trimester.  Funny thing, this is similar to what
>the Supreme Court Roe vs. Wade decision allowed, even encouraged.  

Which restrictions are "some"?  

>The discussion several times has gotten to a very personal, even
>anatomical, level.  There, perhaps, it should rest for a moment --
>close, personal, anatomical.  We're talking ``privacy,'' here.  
>``Private parts,'' remember?  We're talking about State intrusion
>into privacy, here.  Anti-abortionists are fond of talking about
>the ``dozen years of deviance'' from the old time anti-abortionist
>religion, but they forget that all of our liberties have been
>steadily extended over the last two hundred years.  Do they really
>yearn for the good ol' days when it was legal to own human chattel?  

In our advance in human rights there have been many setbacks.  (e.g.
Dred Scott).  I consider Row vs Wade to be one of those.  These are
"the good ol' days".

>One of the rights which has been added, by implication, to the U.S.
>Constitution by the Supreme Court is a trifling little matter of a
>``right of privacy.''  Who among us will step forward to give up
>all of their ``right of privacy''?  Surely, if that right means
>*anything*, it means the right to *control one's body*, one's own
>*private parts*.  This was the judgment of Roe vs. Wade.  (Hmmm...  
>Maybe ol' Roe vs. Wade wasn't such a bad decision after all!  :-))

It certainly was a bad decision.  [An important book on this subject
is _A Private Choice:  Abortion in America in the Seventies_, by John
T. Noonan Jr.,  The Free Press, 1979].  Some who were in favor of
abortion rights, nevertheless called it an "act of raw judicial power".
The Court should not be in the business of adding anything to the
Constitution (that is the perogative of the representative legislative
branch).  The question of whether or not a "right to privacy" implied
in the Constitution is highly debatable.  Row is a prime example of
"judicial activism".  There is plenty of evidence that Justice Brennan
deliberately worded decisions on cases prior to Row in order to provide
a more favorable basis for the upcoming abortion cases.  [See _The
Brethren_, by Bob Woodward and Scott Armstrong,  Simon & Schuster, 1979,
pp. 175-176,234].

People certainly have a right to a certain amount of privacy, but not
an absolute right; especially where the lives of others are concerned.
Read the amendments to the Constitution and see if any such right is
mentioned.  The Court extrapolated it from other amendments and then
defined it to include abortion.  The problem with the "right to privacy"
is that it has no specific legal definition.  What *does* the right
to privacy really mean?  No one is really saying, it was just an expedient
to grant a right to abortion.  Row vs Wade was the ACLU's way of
ramming their desires through the Court, even at a time when the national
concensus was 80% against abortion on demand.  Why didn't they try
to get an amendment to the Constitution passed?  The argument is
strong that the Court greatly overstepped it's power (usurping that
of the legislative branch) with Row vs Wade.

			(Continued)
-- 

Paul Dubuc 	cbscc!pmd