Re: OT: Military Ranks/Computers : WAS Re: newbie question on cobol syntax

On 15 May, 14:59, Howard Brazee <how...@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Tue, 15 May 2007 10:59:53 +1200, "Pete Dashwood"
One abortion position which is pretty common, is the one espoused by
our President's father while in office. That was that abortion
should be illegal except in the case of rape, incest, or to save a
mother's life.

All this argument about abortion is really a waste of time. NONE OF US
IS A WOMAN. As my mother used to say, "If men had to give birth then
abortion would be available on demand".

In the case of a woman being harmed by carrying to term a child, then
it is right to permit abortion.

In the case of a rape victim, where her rights have been ignored by
the perpetrator (who should be in the over crowded jails anyway), it
is not morally justifiable to force her to carry to full term and deny
her an abortion. Are the rights of the rapiust to be held above that
of the unwilling mother?

In the case of incest, there are good health grounds for permitting
abortion. You only have to look at the products of the various
European Royal houses to know that abortion should be compulsory for
incest (and that marriage between cousins, uncles and nieces, etc.,
should be discouraged).

Finally to the case of abortion on demand: as a means of birth control
this should be avoided (there are morning-after pills which cover this
situation), in part because of the risk to the parent and to
discourage profligacy. However, unless there is a track record with
the mother of using abortiuon as a means of birth control, then
abortion should be on demand.

As to the question of what is a foetus and what is a child. Bertrand
Russell points out that with 95% of all conceptions ending in
spontaneous abortions then the Roman Catholic church should be very
busy burying all of the lost souls. A foetus is not a child. The
medical successes in enabling premature births to live from 24 weeks
onwards (and earlier?) is not mirrored in nature and usually results
in serious adverse medical condition for the foetus (such as under-
developed lungs and vestigial brains). Just because we can keep a
premature baby alive does not mean that we have the right to condemn
that foetus to ill health and a poor standard of life. And what about
the parents and nurses who have to look after the prematures? A
substantially premature birth of a non-viable (outside of an incubator
and life support machine) foetus can not be considered to be a baby
if only because you would have to handle all spontaneous abortions as
premature deaths. If you want to call a foetus a baby, then you should
start at the point of conception and accord the foetus (and the
blastula) human rights. After all, if chimpanzees are soon to be given
human rights then so should blastulae.

One classic argument for abortion is that picture referenced on this
newsgroup showing Bush giving the devils horns hand signal. If the
picture is not a fake then the man should make a full and public
apology before resigning from office and returning to the bottle.


Pretty much all positions agree that it is acceptable to kill to save
one's life, so I won't go into that. But the other arguments bother
me. Since nobody believes that we have the right to kill a person
produced by rape or incest, then people who have that belief do not
believe embryos (or maybe even fetuses) are people. If they aren't
people, then the argument is "I don't think it is right, therefore I
will make it illegal". And what's worse is that there is an
argument of "good girls can have abortions, bad girls should be
punished with motherhood". Both of these arguments are wrong, wrong,
wrong.

The person who believes that an embryo or a fetus is a person have a
much stronger moral position. (As are those who don't believe this,
and act accordingly). That "compromise" doesn't work.


.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: URGENT - Please take action now.
    ... We know that a foetus at 28 weeks is a conscious human being as much as ... I cant see why something being inside your body alters its right to life or ... Is it a condition of abortion that you will have a child later to take ... the law so that other people must assist you to kill yourself. ...
    (uk.religion.christian)
  • Re: Pope goes Totalitarian
    ... that abortion is always wrong or that it's never wrong. ... human foetus a person?", who argues that personhood ... abortion isn't a matter of morals as such as regards the foetus. ... There's no obvious reason why the seriousness of killing someone ...
    (uk.religion.christian)
  • Re: Stalin Joins The Telegraph
    ... course we started practising eugenics" - making the point by using ... It does worry me a bit - the abortion statistics for the number of foetuses who are tested and found to have Down's syndrome, ... I'm actually not against abortion, as such, if it's absolutely necessary, but the idea of aborting a foetus just because it will be disabled chills me a bit ... I also think that aborting a foetus because of its sex is also unacceptable (except possibly in extreme conditions where an inherited severe disability applies to one sex only), but there's evidence that amongst the Asian communities there are doctors prepared to abort on the basis of sex if you're prepared to look hard enough and pay enough. ...
    (uk.people.support.depression)
  • Re: Images - Animal Rights Protest
    ... It all depends on the circumstances of the either mother or the ... > foetus or both. ... > then for obvious reasons there are circumstances that can relate to the ... cultures, such as Australian aborigines, induced abortion has been practiced ...
    (rec.photo.digital)
  • Re: Any comments? (The "A" word - was Answers to Pete)
    ... You define a two or three month old foetus as a human being. ... I'm not an abortion provider, but I think that's the wrong way to do it... ... facts about the emotional effects of abortion ... The people who cry "science! ...
    (comp.lang.cobol)