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- Newsgroups: talk.abortion
- Path: sparky!uunet!mcsun!Germany.EU.net!murignis!ap542!D012S436!frank
- From: frank@D012S436.sniap.mchp.sni.de ()
- Subject: Re: Abortion vs. Adoption
- Message-ID: <1992Sep1.095859.1655@sniap.mchp.sni.de>
- Sender: news@sniap.mchp.sni.de (News Admin)
- Organization: Siemens-Nixdorf AG
- References: <17tdcuINNnej@hpsdde.sdd.hp.com>
- Date: Tue, 1 Sep 92 09:58:59 GMT
- Lines: 148
-
- regard@sdd.hp.com (Adrienne Regard) writes:
- : In article <1992Aug31.122431.15398@sniap.mchp.sni.de> frank@D012S436.sniap.mchp.sni.de writes:
- : >I don't accept that as abortion is ever over and done with
- : >as you suggest.
- :
- : Why not?
-
- Why not not?
-
- That is, why did the original poster assert her position. And
- where were you then?
-
- Read on for why not.
-
- :
- : >I'm saying that the knowledge of the child *you* might have
- : >raised, or might have had adopted, for that matter, is with
- : >you for the rest of your life.
- :
- : So is the knowledge of the children you might have raised that you
- : decided never to conceive.
-
- Not really, Adrienne. [And these terminals should have two little
- lights - red to go on when someone is just arguing,
- and green to go on when someone is saying something they
- really believe :-) ].
-
- By actually conceiving, I would imagine that you are suddenly
- in a world of shit, which is not generally the case when
- deciding not to conceive.
-
- You are placed in the position of *having* to make the
- decision, PDQ. You have a new option, which is having the
- child, then opting for adoption (which we are supposed
- to be discussing). That option isn't relevant when you
- simply decide never to have kids. Plus, nobody is telling
- you that deciding not to conceive is immoral. Plenty of
- people are willing to tell you that about abortion, and
- please note that I am not one of them. In the face of all
- this, only an automaton would not have at least a nagging
- doubt about having an abortion.
-
- :
- : >In fact, all I'm saying is: abortion, for women who choose it,
- : >is a Big Deal. They will be affected by it for no little time.
- : >I find *your* claim about "most people" reveals very little
- : >understanding of human nature.
- :
- : Upon what grounds do you make this claim?
- :
-
- No studies. No reports. No evidence. I can't uuencode
- a woman's conscience and upload it for you. The whole
- thing stands or falls on what any honest woman tells
- you about an abortion she has had.
-
- But any woman I have spoken to says the same thing: "no woman
- chooses abortion lightly". I believe that. I also believe
- that something that significant alters ones life.
-
- I also wonder, what if it (abortion) *is* wrong? You
- know, suppose the z/e/f turned out to be a person all
- along. Suppose (whisper it) YOU GOT IT WRONG! AGAIN!
- Suppose that someone up there was mighty pissed off about
- all this pro-choicing. Where would that leave us? What
- would that do to the woman who decided to abort? And
- finally, is that what is in fact happening?
-
- If you believe in a conscience, and I believe your personal
- experience will demonstrate this, then if abortion is indeed
- (morally) wrong, then women who choose it will know it - though
- the consequences of that are so appalling that they may drive
- it so deep that it is almost unknown to them. Maybe that's a
- negative affect, maybe not. It's not a weight I'd like
- to carry.
-
- However, I would say that is very hard to distinguish
- between a woman who feels genuine guilt and woman who
- is a victim of the "guilt industry" that surrounds this
- whole topic. Only the woman herself can make that distinction.
- Even if you feel (note I do not say "think" - I'm sick
- to death of emotions posing as theorems on this newsgroup)
- that abortion is basically O.K., this guilt-tripping is
- still something that society has to deal with.
-
-
-
- : There have been studies performed on these issues, you know. Do you know
- : what the bulk of these studies have found?
-
- I'm not really sure we're talking about the same issues, Adrienne.
- But you're quite correct. I am completely ignorant of any and
- all studies concerning abortion, and would welcome a reference
- to some of them. Has anyone really studied a statistically significant
- number of women's consiences? I'm not trying to be facetious (that
- isn't spelt correctly, is it?) - it's just that as I personally
- believe there are barely words to describe this, I don't see how
- it can be reduced to bar graphs, pie charts, and numbers.
-
- Furthermore, I guess you think that studies are always unbiased. On
- this topic, I wonder. Did you do science at school? Didn't you ever
- draw the line first, and then plot the data? If you didn't, ask your
- wild friends. I'm sure I could find (or even do) a study which would
- appear to support what I am saying, as I'm sure, could you.
-
- We'll leave the question of how scientific such studies can be
- for another day, when it isn't so hot in this office :-)
-
- By the way, the original poster did not justify her "over and
- done with" claim with any perceptible knowledge base or learned
- studies. Yet you did not deem it necessary to point that out.
-
- : Upon what knowledge base do
- : you decide that women will be 'affected by it for no little time' (and,
- : by affected, I'm thinking negatively affected, given the thrust of your
- : previous writings on this topic. Please correct me if I'm wrong.)
-
- Only the knowledge base of a single individual, I'm afraid.
- This is based on people I know, and certain aspects of my
- own experience. I'm willing to grant you, that as a woman,
- your knowledge base on this topic is probably two orders
- of magnitude greater than mine. It's got nothing to do with
- any "studies" you may have read, I'm sorry to tell you.
-
-
- Nevertheless, it is devoutly to be wished that people
- who think that abortion is always "over and done with" are
- not on the front line counselling women who are considering
- abortion. Wouldn't you say? Safe, legal, early and *rare*
- (approximately the original posters .sig, from memory) is not
- an unreasonable manifesto.
-
-
- :
- : Adrienne Regard
- :
-
-
- P.S. If you follow up to this - could you also email me a copy.
- We have a very clunky news feed, and I only get to see random
- snapshots of t.a. You should use the address on
- the .sig., anything else doesn't seem to work. Thanking you.
-
- --
- Frank O'Dwyer Disclaimer:
- Siemens-Nixdorf AG I will deny everything
- Tel. : +49 (89) 636-40639 Fax. : +49 (89) 636-45860
- e-mail: Frank.ODwyer@sniap.mchp.sni.de <--Use this, reply-to is broken
-