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- Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU
- Path: sparky!uunet!gatech!paladin.american.edu!auvm!SAIL.STANFORD.EDU!ANDY
- Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University.
- Message-ID: <9212310025.AA17020@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>
- Newsgroups: bit.listserv.politics
- Date: Wed, 30 Dec 1992 16:25:33 -0800
- Sender: Forum for the Discussion of Politics <POLITICS@UCF1VM.BITNET>
- From: Andy Freeman <andy@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU>
- Subject: Re: abortion
- In-Reply-To: <POLITICS%92123016541855@UCF1VM.CC.UCF.EDU>
- Lines: 36
-
- >A doctor who performs abortions for white women but not
- >for black women is restricting their right to get an abortion. A lung
- >specialist who performs no abortions at all is not.
-
- And, what about the abortionist who won't serve people who can't
- pay?
-
- >The offence here is the denial of the opportunity to participate fully
- >in the life of our economy and society to certain arbitrarily chosen
- >members of that society.
-
- Nope, that's not the offense. Peter doesn't object to certain
- criteria at all - we're merely quibbling over acceptable criteria.
- Peter thinks that some criteria is unacceptable. Oh, he'll let people
- use them "in private", but he defines "private" so as to exclude their
- use.
-
- >There is no right to act like a bigot in public.
-
- Ah, but there is. Many private acts are done publically. Consider
- Peter's consenting targets of affection. He insists that he's well
- within his rights to discriminate on any basis he sees fit, yet many
- of the resulting acts may well be done in public without a squawk from
- him.
-
- >Maybe someday Andy will learn that a campaign for the right to act like
- >a bigot makes a pretty sorry campaign.
-
- Someday Peter may learn that he doesn't have any more rights than a
- bigot, that the precedents cut both ways.
-
- I'll bet there's even a bad poem about that. "They came for the scum,
- and I helped..."
-
- -andy
- --
-