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- Xref: sparky talk.abortion:34104 alt.abortion.inequity:3340
- Newsgroups: talk.abortion,alt.abortion.inequity
- Path: sparky!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!asuvax!ncar!csn!cherokee!eatdust!stevens
- From: stevens@eatdust (John Stevens)
- Subject: Re: Observations
- Message-ID: <1992Aug31.145731.12606@advtech.uswest.com>
- Sender: stevens@uswest.com (John Stevens)
- Nntp-Posting-Host: eatdust.it.uswc.uswest.com
- Organization: To start, I'll need paper and pen. Where did I put that. . .
- References: <1992Aug21.001742.3923@noose.ecn.purdue.edu> <1992Aug25.171409.12451@advtech.uswest.com> <a3andz+.ray@netcom.com>
- Distribution: usa
- Date: Mon, 31 Aug 1992 14:57:31 GMT
- Lines: 61
-
- In article <a3andz+.ray@netcom.com> ray@netcom.com (Ray Fischer) writes:
- >stevens@eatdust (John Stevens) writes ...
- >> smccabe@author.ecn.purdue.edu (Sarah A McCabe) writes:
- >>> serafin@epcot.spdc.ti.com (Mike Serafin) writes:
- >>
- >>Turn it around. Explain (without the use of any belief system) how an
- >>abortion is objectively a responsbile decision.
- >
- >How's about a simple cost-benefit analysis? Suppose a woman, 18 years-old,
- >just graduated from high school and about to enter college, gets pregnant.
- >
- >If she carries the pregnancy to term, she will certainly miss at least one
- >term of college. With less understanding parents, she will more likely be
- >unable to attend college at all. Prospects for a future marriage _and_
- >career will be severely impacted. The financial costs of carrying a child
- >to term are also considerable - several thousand dollars at least.
- >
- >Cost: loss of future earnings, loss of social standing, loss of family support.
- >Benefit: Gained maturity from being a parent earlier.
- >
- >If she gets an abortion during the first trimester, it will cost a few
- >hundred dollars and a weekend of time. Granted, there will probably be
- >one less person in the world, but that would be the case anyway, since
- >she had no intention of having a child in the first place.
- >
- >Cost: The price of an abortion. Guilt.
- >Benefit: Improved odds of finding the right husband. Job satisfaction.
- > Improved social and family standing (assuming privacy).
- >
- >So then, two choices. Stay in school, learn a profession, and contribute
- >learned skills to society, or have a child and be constrained to poor paying
- >jobs. What's the responsible thing to do? This is just one scenario, I
- >can come up with more.
-
- Sure. And with the same reasoning, I can come up with compelling reasons
- to 'elminate' other undesirables, such as the insane, the permanently
- severely retarded, welfare recipients. . .
-
- The problem is that in establishing your objective criteria, you didn't
- establish objective critieria. You are working from the BELIEF that
- a financial balance sheet is a sufficient criteria for establishing
- a correct course of action.
-
- This fallacy is the primary problem with the libertarian party.
-
- The whole idea of asking the above question, was to attempt to illustrate
- a point using the Socratic method. The point I'm trying to get across is
- that everybodies stance (and I mean EVERYBODIES) is based on a personal
- belief system.
-
- And everybody wants to impose their belief system on the rest of the
- country through the use of law.
-
- >
- >--
- >Ray Fischer
- >rfischer@cs.stanford.edu
- >ray@netcom.com
-
- John
- stevens@uswest.com
-