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From: matt@brl-tgr.ARPA (Matthew Rosenblatt )
Newsgroups: net.abortion
Subject: Re: The Status of the Fetus and Its Rights (Proof of Rights)
Message-ID: <2677@brl-tgr.ARPA>
Date: Thu, 31-Oct-85 17:34:18 EST
Article-I.D.: brl-tgr.2677
Posted: Thu Oct 31 17:34:18 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 3-Nov-85 10:38:43 EST
References: <429@cmu-cs-spice.ARPA> <1546@pyuxd.UUCP>
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ng, even as Matt Rosenblatt has HIS
own ideas of right and wrong upon which HE thinks the law should be
based.  So, let's try an example:

How would this sound on the evening news:  "The white winner of the
New York Marathon today was XYZ.  The black winner was ABC, whose
time was 31.8 seconds faster than that of any previous black winner."
Maybe in South Africa, a news story like that would go over; maybe
in 1955 Mississippi; but not in today's America.  So how come our
backs don't go up when we hear about the "men's winner" and the
"women's winner"?  After all, everyone ran together, black and white,
men and women.  Does anyone, does Mr. Rosen, does even Andrea Dworkin,
advocate abolishing separate competition for men and women in favor
of a single absolute standard of running excellence?  If not, it
shows that we still value SOME distinctions based on sex.  And
among those distinctions, I would suspect, is the right of a
19-year-old gynecological patient to have a female nurse if she
wants one.  

The Supreme Court's invalidation of laws against abortion was 
purportedly made on the basis of the right to privacy.  Is the
need for enforced equality of the sexes so absolute that it
outweighs even the right to privacy?  Is equality EVER incompatible
with "human dignity and freedom"?  (I ask for the second time.)

> > So one extreme position could be that any difference whatever
> > between two persons should cause a difference in their rights.
> > But I see no warrant for this extreme position. [M. ROSENBLATT]

> Yet you use it at every turn, to justify anti-feminism, 
> anti-abortionism, etc.  [R. ROSEN]

No, not with respect to "any difference whatever."  As an anti-feminist,
I believe that sometimes, in some situations, your rights and 
responsibilities should be influenced by your sex.  In respect to
abortion, however, I repudiate the idea that the right to life
should depend on the difference between "not born yet" and "born
already."

> > The same goes for the other extreme, that differences among people should
> > be ignored when society makes up rules and responsibilities.  Do we want
> > the same standard of care applied to a surgeon as to a paper-hanger?
> > Do we want to eliminate father-son dinners and mother-daughter teas?
> > Do we want a born foreigner to have the same right as a native
> > American to become President?  [M. ROSENBLATT]

> Why not?  Care to elaborate?  [R. ROSEN]

A surgeon has to have a license, because of the harm that an incompetent
surgeon could do to people's health.  The Maryland Court of Appeals ruled
in 1936 that it is unconstitutional to require a paperhanger to obtain a
license.  What real harm could he do if he were incompetent?

There is a special bond that exists between a father and his son, and
between a mother and her daughter, EVEN AS there is a special bond that
exists between a father and his daughter, and between a mother and her
son.  If people decide to organize a father-son dinner to build on this
bond, who is the State or anyone else to stop them on the grounds of
"sex discrimination"?  Must a feminist organization whose members all
share the common bond of being female admit men if its members
don't want to?

We don't want a foreigner to come here at the head of his army and
usurp the office of President.  Even if (chas v'sholom) we were to
lose a war, or the British were to come back and burn Washington for
a second time, the conqueror could not claim legitimacy, because the
Constitution forbids him from becoming President.  (What on Earth does this
all have to do with abortion rights??  Do I have to take up everyone's
time just to "elaborate" at Rich Rosen's request?  If I keep doing so,
how long will it be before readers press the "n" key every time they
see an article by Matt Rosenblatt?)

>> Go read the books and find out who is being hurt?  LITTLE CHILDREN, THAT'S 
>> WHO -- victims of feminism.  THE POOR -- victims of liberalism.  THE
>> PEOPLE OF BOLSHEVIK RUSSIA AND CHINA AND THEIR SLAVE EMPIRES -- victims
>> of dialectical materialism.  [M. ROSENBLATT]

> Let's try to look at this ranting in a serious way.  Children suffer 
> because of feminism.  NOT because their fathers go to work, but because
> their vmothers do.  [R. ROSEN]

Did I say that??  Marie Winn's "Children Without Childhood," based on
interviews with real children, demonstrated that children are hurt 
by divorce and by not having a parent at home.  Mrs. Winn herself
wrote that just because children need a parent at home, there is no
reason that parent has to be the mother.  Feminist lobbying has
changed the divorce laws to make divorce much easier -- see the
recent issue of U.S. News and World Report for a report on how women
and children have suffered from this development.  Feminism has also
led to a rise in the number of two-earner families, with no one at
home to watch the children.  The FACT is that the consequences of
feminism have hurt innocent children.  I personally know several
women and children who have been hurt -- oddly enough, the men
have managed to come out of it with a whole coat.

When I read a book, and the author's statements agree with what I have
seen in the real world, THEN I will go along with those statements.

I cannot agree with everything Dr. Schlossberg writes in "Idols for
Destruction," because his is a Christian (i.e., New Testament) as
well as biblical (i.e., Hebrew Bible) outlook on the world.
Nevertheless, his arguments about how Western society has made
idols out of Power, Religion, Mammon, etc. ring true because
they jibe with what I have seen in the world.  Therefore, I can cite
him as an authority on the evil effects of materialism and liberalism.
But if anti-feminism is only tangential to the abortion issue, anti-
materialism and anti-liberalism are totally out of the arena.  This
is no place to recount such arguments.  If I see an argument based
on materialism or liberalism, I will point out that that argument
is so based, and explain why the particular materialist or liberal
assumption used to support the argument does not hold water.

					-- Matt Rosenblatt