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From: wjr@x.UUCP (Bill Richard)
Newsgroups: net.abortion
Subject: "Pro-life", "anti-slavery" prejudge the issue
Message-ID: <820@x.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 28-Oct-85 01:30:11 EST
Article-I.D.: x.820
Posted: Mon Oct 28 01:30:11 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 31-Oct-85 22:49:09 EST
References: <429@cmu-cs-spice.ARPA> <1546@pyuxd.UUCP>
Reply-To: wjr@x.UUCP (STella Calvert)
Organization: Charles River Data Systems, Framingham MA
Lines: 150
Keywords: slavery
Summary: Can we find neutral terms?

This is still STella, no matter who the header thinks it is. 

In article <669@ccice2.UUCP> pwk@ccice2.UUCP (Paul W. Karber) writes:
>In article <795@x.UUCP> wjr@x.UUCP (STella Calvert) writes:
>> Where do you draw the line?  If I were a slave, would I have the right to kill
>> my "owner" if that were the only way I could escape?  What makes one form of
>> involuntary servitude different from another?
> 
>Nothing that I can see.  Are saying that I had the right to kill
>my draft board?  What about people in our prison systems?  Do
>they have the right to kill their "owners"?

I will not tell you what to do about people who hold _you_ in involuntary
servitude -- you must decide that for yourself.  But I wouldn't risk my life
(or even cross the street) to protect a coercer.  And the guards and
draftboard members are far more voluntary in their coercion than my 
hypothetical slaveholding fetus.

>		  Since you are alive you have the freedom to choose theft
>as a way of life.  Society has the power to punish you for it.

NO!  I disagree.  Since you are alive, you have the right to choose to attempt
to steal from me.  It might not be good for your life expectancy, but you 
_can_ choose to attempt it.  I will never concede to society any right I 
will not claim for myself.  And I do not have the right to "punish" you.  
Kill you, or convince you in less final terms that I am not a mark, but I 
have no right to judge that you should be "punished".

>> 		 my right to the life I choose is less than the right 
>> of my unwanted tenant to enslave me for nine months.

>What a poor statement of the pro-life position.  Your right to be free
>from enslavement by an unwanted tenant for nine months is less then
>that tenants right to be free to live 70 years (on the average) of life.

I have no rights that depend on compelling you to serve me.  I grant no such
rights to anyone else.  If I choose to serve you, I will.  Otherwise, if you
attempt to enslave me I will prevent you.  If I must kill you to do this, I 
may or may not regret the necessity, but I will not surrender.

>The "unwanted tenant" did not force entry for the purpose of enslaving
>you.  If they did my position would be different.  The "unwanted tenant"
>was placed there (by the winds of fortune) and now has no choice but
>to stay for nine months or die.

If some punk breaks my window and enters my house, I will not blame, or
consider, the winds of fortune (whatever they are 8-).  If I rob you because
my children are hungry, I am still a thief.  If Simonetta LeGree was blown
into her slaveholding family by the aforementioned winds, she's still a damn
slaveholder.  I cannot, presently, emancipate myself from a slaveholding fetus
without killing it.  If ever I can put it in cold storage until I am willing
to birth it, I would consider that an acceptable resolution.  But if the
choice is between my freedom and a slaveholder's life, I will kill.  

By the way, I don't see in your posting that you support the right to 
abortion, so all I hear you say is that my statement of the anti-slavery 
position doesn't convince you.  With all _possible_ respect, you are not 
qualified to judge how my statement is received by pro-choice people.  OK?

>If society perceives your decisions as being harmful to society as
>a whole shouldn't it try to interfere?  Society attempts to interfere
>with my decision to drive after drinking, when and whether to wear
>seatbelts.  Is this wrong?  What if you decide to kill and steal?
>would you be sickened by my willingness to interfere with your
>killing and stealing?

Society?  What actions is it acceptable for a group to do that would be
unacceptable if performed by the individual members, and why?  I argue that
there are no such cases, you -- I don't know -- I don't want to state (8-) 
your case.

And if you (rhetorical you, I'm not accusing any party to this discussion) are
stupid enough to drive drunk, or not wear a seatbelt, I don't care.  Evolution
in action.  Some innocent non-drunk drivers will be killed, and if rhetorical
you survive this drunken assault on my car, I will seek justice, but on the
whole, drunk driving kills more drunks than non-drunk drivers, and I prefer
this risk to presuming to coerce you into obedience.  (If anyone wants to kick
this around, let's move it out of net.abortion -- I can't avoid inserting
politics into the discussion, but I think it's time to move if we continue.)

>					  There are some pro-life
>people who object to the term pro-choice.  Since they believe that
>abortion kills a human life, and killing a human life is not valid
>choice, they think pro-death is a better term.  They do not respect
>the opinion that a fetus is not a human life.  

I don't respect attitudes that lead to coercion, either, but I try to
demonstrate their effects, and move on.  And to remember that possession of
what seems to me to be an idiotic idea does not make the speaker an idiot.
(Why, I had an idiotic idea once, it was in 1963, or was it 1964 . . . 8-)
Note please, that I have been very careful not to identify for the net which
ideas are idiotic -- that's the individual's job, and I will not do it for
anyone else.

What we need to resolve this terminology debate is a pair of value-neutral
terms.  I intended, by my use of pro-slavery, to demonstrate why I resent the
attempt of "pro-life" people to claim the moral high ground.  If you are
pro-life, anyone who disagrees with you is a bad guy.  Therefore, pro-slavery.
The amount of heat this posting generated suggests to me that the "pro-life"
people on the net don't like imbedded moral judgements any more than I do.
Now, can we look for a pair of neutral terms and cut the king-of-the-hill
nonsense.  I think I've made my point -- "pro-life" attempts to prejudge an
issue that must be resolved in each individual.  What can we call ourselves,
and even more importantly each other, that avoids this prejudgement?
Pro-choice, I concede, may not be neutral enough -- I don't find it offensive
to me, but I understand your point.

>                 You say you want to encourage people to respect
>other's opinions.  How do you intend to do this?  By non-example?
>By insulting people who disagree with you?  Disagree with me, but
>respect my opinion enough to call it what it is.  Regardless of what
>you call my opinion I will not call yours pro-death.

As above, by assuming that, having experienced the moral preemption strategy,
you are now willing to think with me about neutral terms that do not (as
"pro-life" DOES) prejudge the issue.  People who call themselves "pro-life"
either don't seem to see the insult implicit in their claim that only folks
who agree with them are pro-life, or (I hope not, but I've met some that cause
me to wonder) consciously intend to prejudge the issue.

>			  (should abortion be made illegal I would
>recommend going to Canada above doing a homemade abortion.

I have, from time to time, been unable to afford a trip to Canada.  I may,
someday, be in that position again.  But because I know ways of aborting
myself, I will remain free until and unless I choose to bear a child, no 
matter whether I am privileged to fly to Canada or not.  I'd prefer a safe 
clinic abortion here;  I'm intelligent enough to avoid some of the risks of 
home abortion;  I may be able to afford a competent illegal abortionist; 
I would rather fly to Canada than abort myself; but I will not commit an 
unwanted child. 

>>		Every man and every woman is a star.

>I have always thought of myself as a bit player. (A bit player.
>get it? I'm a programmer, "bit" player. Oh never mind.)

I like the pun, though I hope you don't really see yourself as that
insignificant.  I can disagree violently (verbally violently, please) with you
without losing sight of the fact that you are a star, one of the three billion
namers of god.

				STella Calvert

		Every man and every woman is a star.

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