NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #19/NN_1992_19.iso/spool/talk/abortion/33876

Internet Message Format | 1992-08-29 | 3.6 KB

Path: sparky!uunet!gatech!purdue!mentor.cc.purdue.edu!noose.ecn.purdue.edu!author.ecn.purdue.edu!smccabe
From: [e-mail] (Sarah A McCabe)
Newsgroups: talk.abortion
Subject: Re: There's every reason to vote for Bush
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 28 Aug 92 18:53:30 GMT
References: <[e-mail] <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>
Sender: [e-mail] (USENET news)
Organization: Purdue University Engineering Computer Network
Lines: 58

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Peter Nyikos) writes:
>
>Last month I asked networkers to imagine the following scenario, now
>updated by saying "plasma" instead of "blood", and with some
>new details added:
>
>A VERY close relative,
>as close as mother to offspring, has a very rare bodily constitution
>which for some reason makes it impossible for anyone in the world except
>you to donate even plasma.  Said relative also has a strange condition
>which makes periodic plasma donations necessary for 9 months, otherwise
>death is inevitable; but if donations are made, then after 9 months this
>relative will recover and never again need these donations from you.
>
>Now, even though the donation of plasma involves the use, if you want
>to put it that way, of tissues, organs, etc.  I think you should be
>morally obligated to make these donations.
>
>I do not advocate that you
>be punished if you refuse [as indeed, no woman has ever been legally
>punished for procuring an abortion done on her], but I do think that
>anyone who smashes the special plasma-donating equipment [which for
>some reason is irreplaceable] should be prosecuted, even if you ask
>him to do it, and I think you should thank the judge for being merciful
>enough not to prosecute you despite your having actually *paid* the
>creep who destroyed the equipment.

So, let me see if I can summarize this scenario:
1.  I own this plasma machine.
2.  I can use it, at some personal expense, to save someone's life.
3.  There is no punishment for not using it.
4.  But if I pay someone to render it unuseable, that person is subject to
    prosecution (what crime?).

In order to make this analogy closer to pregnancy, you would have to
introduce the condition that the only way I can avoid using this
machine is to destroy it (or at least render it temporarily unuseable).
In your analogy, the decision not to use the machine is a completely
separate event from destroying it.  Those two events are not separable
in pregnancy and that is an important distiction.  But to continue with
your analogy as you wrote it:

Do you honestly consider this a just legal system?  I assume that under
your system if I destroy the machine myself I would be subject to the
same penalties as any other person who destroyed it.  You seem to be saying
that if you have a physical possession which can save someone's life, you
are not only morally required to use it to do so, but should be subject
to legal sanctions if you destroy that physical possession so that
no one can use it.  Is that an accurate summary?  If so, I sure hope
you have never thrown away any leftover food that could have been used
to feed a starving person.  I sure hope you don't drink or smoke or in
any other way damage your internal organs which can be used as
transplants after you are dead.  Under your legal system, you could
could be facing some pretty hefty penalties.  Is this really the
sort of system you which to impose on all of us, or is it just
fertile women who should be held to these standards?

Sarah McCabe