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- Newsgroups: talk.abortion
- Path: sparky!uunet!paladin.american.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!eff!news.oc.com!spssig.spss.com!adams
- From: adams@spss.com (Steve Adams)
- Subject: Re: Christian Pro-Choicers
- Message-ID: <adams.727758048@spssig>
- Sender: news@spss.com (Net News Admin)
- Organization: SPSS Inc.
- References: <bob1.727034914@cos> <1993Jan20.185651.6837@noao.edu> <root.727561852@spssig> <lm16jfINNe66@ar-rimal.cs.utexas.edu>
- Date: Sat, 23 Jan 1993 03:00:48 GMT
- Lines: 55
-
- brinkley@cs.utexas.edu (Paul Brinkley) writes:
-
- >Well. It's been a whole three days since I last said something on this
- >newsgroup, and now I see 500 articles. To warm up, I shall jump into
- >this thread with a reply to Steve Adams' post, and who knows? Maybe I'll
- >even throw in an unprovoked personal attack on him as well, to show I'm
- >part o' the gang. :)
- Wow! Selected out of 500! How kind! How thoughtful!
-
- >To start, Suzanne Forgach, that spirited pro-life debater, said that
- >people who grieve the Holocaust are now advocating the murder of our
- >most fragile. To which Steve replies:
- >
- >In article <root.727561852@spssig> adams@spss.com (Steve Adams) writes:
- >>
- >>Come on Suzanne. The difference is that the Holocaust was a decision of
- >>one man, who ignored everyone's opinion, that took millions of lives.
- >>Abortion is a decision made by a millions of persons, individually.
- >>
- >>While the scales may be the same (ie millions), the ideas and concepts
- >>behind the two are totally different. One is the imposition of a single
- >>person's will on the entire population, the other is individual will.
- >
- >Entirely true, Steve. However, as palatable as abortion may be when
- >compared to the Holocaust, to Suzanne (and myself for the time being),
- >it is still one person taking the life of another, without the latter's
- >consent, or dare I say, choice.
-
- The issues here are a bit larger, I think. First of all, I am opposed to
- abortion. But, I also think that it must remain legal. The issue comes
- down to a basic liberty interest. Until the fetus is viable outside the
- womb, I don't think there is any arguable position to deny the liberty
- interest of a woman to make decisions about her own body. Once the fetus
- becomes viable, then the liberty interest of the baby becomes relevent.
-
- On purely moral grounds, you are correct. But, I cannot impose morals
- which I derive from my religion on others. I base my opinions on laws
- on whether or not they protect the liberty interest of the individual, and
- to what extent. Laws that are not based on individual liberty are junk in
- most cases (certain exceptions : taxes, which are necessary at some level,
- etc)
-
- >And now for the Obligatory Unprovoked Choice-Advocate Harangue (OUCH):
- Syre...why not...;-)
-
- >You stay up too late, Steve.
- Blame IBM...a simple upgrade caused a problem requring an all nite rebuild
- of one of our production systems. Oh joy. What else to do but read news?
-
- -Steve
- --
- The opinions expressed above are those of the author and not SPSS, Inc.
- -------------------
- adams@spss.com Phone: (312) 329-3522
- Steve Adams "Space-age cybernomad" Fax: (312) 329-3558
-