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- Newsgroups: talk.abortion
- Subject: Re: Gypsies and the Down's Syndrome: McBean and Nyikos email
- Message-ID: <1992Sep9.153121.2243@brandonu.ca>
- From: mcbeanb@brandonu.ca
- Date: 9 Sep 92 15:31:20 CST
- References: <brandonu.ca mcbeanb.mail.abortion:13> <1992Sep9.151416.2241@brandonu.ca>
- Organization: Brandon University, Brandon, Manitoba, Canada
- Lines: 60
-
- > In article <brandonu.ca mcbeanb.mail.abortion:13>, nyikos@milo.math.scarolina.edu (Peter Nyikos) writes:
- >>> >> Other
- >>> >> people have different beliefs and values, and it's unfair to impose
- >>> >> one set of values on such a large and diverse population as that in
- >>> >> which we live. That's why I'm pro-choice.
- >>> >
- >>> >This is going to probably be the big bone of contention between you
- >>> >and me in the future. As you may know (I picked it up from Peter Maas's
- >>> >book _King of the Gypsies_) many gypsies think they have a god-given
- >>> >right to steal, and this may be shared by the Mafia as well. Yet we
- >>> >continue to have laws against theft, etc.
- >>>
- >>> Here's a sticky argument, but I think I can surpass it...
- >>> Being pro-choice, I am not actively causing the death of any feti,
- >>> but I am protecting all women's rights to protect their bodies.
- >>
- >> Since when is abortion for gender selection, and abortion for
- >> the elimination of
- >> handicaps on the order of Down's Syndrome, protecting the body of
- >> the woman?
-
- When can you prove an abortion is for gender selection? What if the
- baby's gonna be killed anyway if it's the wrong sex?
- As for handicaps, if the woman wants to abort her z/e/f then
- what sort of life do you suppose she would offer that child if
- forced to give birth? Maybe she's financially incapable of
- such a burden. Maybe she's mentally incapable. Would you want
- to propose that a psychological survey of such women be conducted
- before allowing them a legal abortion? That could drag things out
- until the third trimester, or even after birth. Then what do you
- do? The woman's risk has practically been realized by that point.
- She might be dead. She might be hysterical. She might have starved
- by then. I'm not saying it's right, I'm just saying there's no
- way to regulate it. That's how I became pro-choice in the first
- place come to think of it.
-
- >>> The gypsies and the mafia's personal beliefs would cause them
- >>> to actively harm other people, and violate their freedoms.
- >>> A pro-choicer violates nobody's freedoms other than the fetus,
- >>> but the fetus is not a person, only a potential person, therefore
- >>> the rights of the mother (the real current person) override any
- >>> partial rights of the fetus.
- >>
- >> Uh-oh. Looks like we have another big bone of contention here. When
- >> you say "potential person," are you speaking in purely legalistic terms?
- >> I would guess not, from your use of "actively harm".
-
- You guessed correctly...
-
- >> But then you are
- >> making a gigantic assumption, that the fetus is incapable of suffering
- >> great agony during a D&E dismemberment, etc.
-
- I made no such assumption. I'm still foggy on these ideas, but I think to
- myself "if all you have is pain, do you have anything?" Let's not
- forget the pain of childbirth, either...
-
- >>Peter
-
- Brian McBean - McBeanB@BrandonU.Ca
-