NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #16/NN_1992_16.iso/spool/talk/abortion/28189

Internet Message Format | 1992-07-20 | 5.3 KB

Path: sparky!uunet!stanford.edu!rutgers!cmcl2!panix!jk
From: [e-mail] (Jim Kalb)
Newsgroups: talk.abortion
Subject: Re: The C word
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 20 Jul 92 22:52:11 GMT
References: <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>
Organization: PANIX Public Access Unix & Internet, NYC
Lines: 92

[e-mail] (Muriel Nelson) writes [Note: I've deleted much of her
posting, I hope without distorting the points I am replying to]:

>The practical results of legislating this bit of your morality [not
>accepting financial difficulty as a justification for abortion] could
>be, 'sorry, no sex for poor parents'.

Is this true?  I would think that the financial risk of having another
child would be more or less on a par with the other financial risks that
people run, and so would not dominate people's daily lives in the way
you suggest.  People deal with risk without turning their lives around
in a lot of ways -- by taking care (for example, in using
contraception), by spending money to save money in the long run
(possibly, surgical sterilization) or by not thinking about it.  If
financial risks materialize people usually deal with them through some
combination of finding more money, cutting other expenses, help from
friends and family, government programs, charity, etc.  What is special
about the risk of another mouth to feed that would cause the revolution
in personal behavior that you forsee?

>I think [legal restrictions on abortion are] wrong for a number of
>reasons.

>1. That 'life', which has a significant chance in nature
>   of not being protected anyway, can be legally protected
>   only at the expense of the rights of the woman who carries it.  When
>   abortion is illegal, pregnant women have fewer
>   rights concerning their bodies than all other born persons.
>2. Women who face unwanted pregnancies are often truly
>   desperate.  Legislation will put them in the position
>   of risking their lives. (This is _not_ academic, I've
>   seen it.)
>3. It would exacerbate the inequality of women in our society.  What
>   equivalent _physical_ burden must a male
>   bear as a result of his participation in consensual sex?
>4. Women are quite frequently intelligent, thoughtful human
>   beings who will often know better what sorts of physical
>   and emotional burdens they can bear than the legislature,
>   or any number of random males who are somehow filled with
>   empathy for fetuses but curiously devoid of it where women
>   are concerned.

Points 1 and 3, and to some extent point 4, have to do with whether
restrictions on abortion constitute unequal treatment of women.  I think
not, because they are not based on applying different rules to women
than to men but rather on applying the same rules -- respect for human
life and responsibility for the forseeable consequences of one's own
actions -- to the differing circumstances in which women and men find
themselves.  Maybe it would be worth adding that it appears from a
recent posting that most of the reasons women have for abortion are
reasons that the father could just as easily have, and under current law
the father has no right to demand an abortion.

As I understand them, your points 2 and 4 have to do with the "hard
cases" and whether (1) a general prohibition of abortion that recognizes
no exceptions for hard cases would be bearable, and (2) if not, whether
a legal definition of all the hard cases that would justify abortion is
possible.  I've suggested providing exceptions for two hard cases (rape
and incest) and given reasons why such exceptions would be defensible
consistent with banning most abortions.  It seems to me that another
exception, for serious health risks to the mother, could also be
defended on the grounds that at least in its earlier stages the z/e/f,
while very valuable and worthy of protection, should not be treated as
the equal of the mother.

Perhaps I should ask, though, what sorts of situations you have in mind?
Your view may be that the justification for an abortion depends so much
on the woman's feelings, intentions and overall situation that it is
impossible for another person to determine that the abortion is so
clearly unjustified that legal prohibition is appropriate.  That view
seems wrong to me -- the abortions I know about, and surveys like the
one recently posted giving the reasons women have for having abortions,
lead me to think that the reasons for most abortions don't remotely
justify the destruction of something that in most important respects is
very similar to a newborn baby.

Finally, regarding some other points you touch on:

I don't see how the significant chance that a z/e/f will die before
birth affects the morality of abortion.

I don't understand the reference to "random males" -- any law
restricting abortion would have to be passed by an elected legislature,
and women have most of the votes.  Also, the polls I've seen don't
suggest that opposition to abortion is exclusively male.

I would understand the reference to people with "empathy for fetuses but
curiously devoid of it where women are concerned" if there were people
who thought a z/e/f should not be subject to being destroyed at will and
also thought that there should be no penalty for killing women.  I know
--
    Jim Kalb ([e-mail])