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From: jho@ihu1m.UUCP (Yosi Hoshen)
Newsgroups: net.abortion
Subject: Re: The Status of the Fetus and Its Rights
Message-ID: <690@ihu1m.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 24-Sep-85 13:31:04 EDT
Article-I.D.: ihu1m.690
Posted: Tue Sep 24 13:31:04 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 26-Sep-85 06:23:56 EDT
References: <429@cmu-cs-spice.ARPA> <1546@pyuxd.UUCP> <1571@brl-tgr.ARPA>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Lines: 24


> I told everyone that abortion is a question of values.  MY values tell me so,
> so I say so.  YOUR values tell you that the woman's right to remove the
> entity outweighs the entity's right to go on using her body for support.
> It goes back to my very first posting:  WHOSE right to control her own body?
> Can you PROVE than every person has the right to control his own body?  Or
> is it just something you assume as a basic, fundamental right?  [ROSENBLATT]

I think you got it right.  The abortion issue is a clash between two sets of
moral values.  However, I think the positions of the pro-lifers and
pro-choicers are asymmetrical.  Whereas the anti-abortionist are trying
to impose their moral code on the pro-choice side, the pro-choice side
does not attempt to coerce the other side to conform to its moral code.

I think that in some (Red China?) countries the governments are
trying to force women to have abortions against their will.  They
justify their act by the needs of population control.  Such a
coercive approach is symmetrical to the pro-lifer approach.  In
both cases, we have a moral standard that denies a woman control of
her body.  

-- 
Yosi Hoshen, AT&T Bell Laboratories
Naperville, Illinois,  Mail: ihnp4!ihu1m!jho