Conference turris::womannotes-v1

    I am reminded of the anti-abortion argument:  Even though the
    woman does not want the baby, she should carry it to term to
    provide a baby for people who do want it.
    
    If the above argument is legitimate (I do not think it is), then
    the [straw-man (?)] argument about using aborted fetuses for
    saving lives surely is legitimate.
    
    							Ann B.
    
    P.S.  The fetus of the woman who had taken thalidomide was indeed
    deformed.  It was also dead.  She would have had a miscarriage,
    thereby risking her life, if she had not aborted.  (This is one
    of those unimportant details that gets left out of summaries.  I'm
    a sucker for unimportant details.)

    I don't see any problem.  A law could easily be passed making it
    illegal for a woman to accept any payment for having an abortion.
    This would rule out the "farming" concept.  As for using the organs
    of an aborted fetus for life-saving procedures, why not?  The
    difference between taking the organs of a fetus for medical research
    or saving lives and taking the organs of a dead person is that the
    dead person was once in a position to decide for her/hisself whether
    to grant permission; the organs of the aborted fetus could be obtained
    by the parent('s,s') permission.  I have made arrangements for my
    organs, if usable, to be taken for those reasons.
    
                        Carol

    Ann (.1):
    
    	Yes, some aspects of the points raised in the column would be
    moot.  However, there is information in the column which goes beyond
    the abortion issue: the use of the fetal remains and the potential
    for mis appropriation of same once sufficiently important uses for
    the fetal remains have been qualified.
    
    	I have no stand on the abortion issue as it relates to any person
    save for me.  I hope discussion of the column is not limited to
    the abortion issue.
    
    Douglas

    did anybody out there read the book "the city of joy"?
    
    it told about one incident where one lady was paid to abort her
    baby at 7 monthes. she died.
    the book also stated that india was one of the largest centers for
    exporting fetal specimens,bodies,etc...
    
    the united states is one of the biggest buyers from these wholesale
    exporters.
    
    i was horrified
    
    
    kelly

    I don't see why this practice is any more "horrible" than accepting
    organs from dead people who donated them when they were alive, or
    any more horrible than medical students cutting up corpses, and
    I don't think it is *as* horrible as many medical uses of live animals.
     After all the baby wasn't going to have a chance to live anyway,
    and those of us who are already alive will benefit from having as
    many diseases cured as possible.
    
    Lorna
    

>	What a distance we have traveled since that innocent age.  
>Abortion has become the most common surgical procedure in America;
>1.5 million are performed yearly, and 99 percent are done for social
>or economic reasons.

It might have been the most common surgical procedure in America before
Roe v. Wade: however it wasn't counted as such.  It might also be pointed
out that, when abortion was illegal, it was also illegal in some states
for a hospital/doctor to "clean up" after a botched abortion.

>	The good news is, we are no longer on the slippery slopes, we 
>have just about reached bottom.

I find this statement touchingly naive.

>	"What makes you think the West is worth saving?"

An interesting question, given that abortion (and femicide) have been
popular means of birth control in non-Western cultures.  In fact, what
is interesting about "Western" culture is its unusual emphasis on the
worth of an individual human being.  The recent novel, Whirlwind
(by James Clavel) offers a view of a culture with quite different values.
Indeed, one of the characters in Whirlwind concludes that the "West"
can be destroyed by its emphasis on individuality.

Martin.

    re.7
    i personally dont find that using fetal/human remains for science
    horrifing,but the thing i talked about from the book i read was
    horrifying.
    the exporters picked upon uneducated,starving people. this woman
    was not going to abort till he approached her offering money for
    food.the fact that it was not performed in a hospital but in a
    warehouse and that the woman bled to death.
    thats what horrifies me.
    
    kelly

    ooops
    i meant re.6
    
    sorry

    Re .8, Kelly, what horrifies me most is that there are still starving
    and uneducated people in the world.  As long as there are starving
    people, the rest of us are going to have to deal with the lengths
    these people are driven to (and with the greed of those who exploit
    them).
    
    Lorna
    

    re.10
    yes,i think you are right.
    as long as there is "victims"there will be people ther to exploit
    them. *sigh*

RE: .1

"she should carry it to term to provide a baby for people who do want it."

I do not believe that that is the argument.  (or at least I think that it is a
shallow argument, and there are better)  The argument is to carry the baby so
that the baby can live, not "to provide a baby for people who want it." The
choice of keeping the baby, or letting it be adopted is the parents choice.

I suppose it is 'morally possible' to use organs from ?fetusi? for transplants.
The question is how, why, what, where, and who the fetus is obtained.  The only
moral way I can think of are spontaneous abortions.

How much more dangerous is a miscarriage, in a hospital, let's say, then an
abortion?   Aren't most abortion procedures basically producing a miscarriage?

RE: .4

*Gross*

What next?  I don't feel this is very far from eating dead babys.

RE: .6

True, animal medical mistreatement is pretty bad too.

RE: .7

In what circumstances does "femicide" happen?

Jim. 

    
    
    Just a quick note about the author.   This column is quite typical
    of Pat Buchanan, ... trying to equate anything non ultra-conservative
    to that of Hitler and the third reich.                    
    
    Pat Buchanan is a very strong  ANTI-supporter of the womens (as
    well as gay and minority) movement and womens rights.
    
    He was for quite a while (before becoming Reagans press secretary)
    and is now again the co-host of a cable talk show called CROSSFIRE,
    (on CSPAN I think) ... I've seen him say some pretty insulting things
    about women and women's rights.   If you get a chance some time,
    watch the show, ...  especially if the topic is womens rights.
    
    Paul
    
    

    re .12 re .7
    One example I can think of in re femicide is the cultures that
    leave girl babies to die of exposure.
    
    and in re the above...how would all of this relate to the couple
    who, discovering that their baby had no brain, chose to have the
    child kept alive after birth so that the organs could be used to
    save the life of another child...they did this so that good would
    come out of their tragedy.

    
    Bonnie

re .8 (about the tragedy of the woman dying after the abortion in the warehouse)

I suspect that, if the morally superior people in this country manage to have
the abortion law repealed, then we'll be hearing a lot more about poor women  
dying in warehouses and back alleys after abortions.

Still, the wages of sin is death, right? 

			Nigel

ps: If you don't recognise a certain amount of sarcasm in this, then read it 
again

ps2: I should cross post this in the "hot buttons" note, but what the heck

    re.16
    sarcasm noted :-)
    i dont think that the person intended this note to start another
    abortion note.i took it to mean that the person who wrote the article
    is saying that abortions will lead to breeding for medical purposes
    only,sort of like raising minks.
    
    i personally dont feel that abortion will lead to that.
    i am not speaking for all women here just kelly daughan.
    
    the idea that could happen(what ever brings it about) is scarey.
    all i could think about was that chapter i read talking about that
    lady.it even discribed shelves full of jars with body parts,fetuses
    at all different stages like it was a grocery store.
    the intent of these people was not to advance science,but to make
    money.
    
    
    if the wages of sin is death,i must be a saint then.  :-)
    
    kelly
    

	Beyond the boundaries of financial comfort and "civilized"
behavior exists a world where human beings are still treated like
chattel - to be bought and sold.  "City of Hope", mentioned in
some earlier responses, shines a small light into this ugly side
of humanity.  Do you know people contract to purchase the skeletons
of living people based on orders from medical schools for skeletons
of a specific sex and age?  Imagine being so damned hungry you
would consent to sell your skeletal remains - and how you would feel
being asked to sell them since only people who are close to death
are contacted.  Imagine selling some of your children so your remaining 
children would have enough to eat.  Imagine blinding or crippling one
of your children so that she or he would make a sympathetic looking 
beggar.  These barbarities are happening every day.

	Our civilized analysis of the earth's animals often results
in someone making the observation that the fit survive and this is
how the species is kept strong.  What is often not stated is the  
degree to which this concept is exploited among humans.  When the 
wealthy find a value in the pain of the less wealthy the pain will 
be exploited.  Some 'civilized' societies pass laws against the 
exploitation of humans but the laws quite often are limited to the 
exploitation of the governed people, making it defacto legal to 
exploit the less fortunate in other societies.

	If you think for one minute there will not be 'fetal factories'
in less developed nations, assuming the fetal remains are of sufficient 
value, you are terribly naive.  A large percentage of the blood used in
western countries come from the poor of the developing nations - from
the arms of people so poor and ill fed their children are born with
infections all but unheard of in western countries in the 20th century.

	I have been fortunate enough to travel extensively in some
developing nations (most of the countries of Africa, Asia and South
America) and have witnessed first hand some of the ugliest aspects of 
our capability to exploit the less fortunate.  We may never see 'fetal
factories' in western countries but that doesn't mean western based
companies won't be setting them up outside of our laws and land.

	You are pregnant, have six living children from two to ten
years of age.  Your husband works when he can, which is not often.
Your home consists of a piece of cloth on the bare earth.  You
are offered the equivalent of a month's salary ($20.00 or so) to
have an abortion.  Can you say no?  (If you say yes, the person
who set up the contract will take a percentage of the price being
paid for your fetus, by the way.)

	I suggest to anyone who believes we are a humane race, read
such books as "City of Hope".  Better yet, take a trip to a developing
nation, leave the touring group and have a close look at life three
blocks from the Hilton.

    I understand the concern about the "fetal factories."  But why can't
    fetuses be donated just like organs? Why can't the scenario be "woman
    gets abortion and donates the aborted fetus to X hospital?" 
    
    Karen    

    I have a few questions.  I'll put in a whole lot of returns so the
    squeamish can look at the next response.
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    The methods/locations/consent/etc matters for abortion are basically
    subdivided into the three trimesters. At what point in the fetus'
    development do the various organs/cells/etc become viable for these
    transplants/donations/etc? 
    
    Also, what method of abortion must be used to preserve the organs
    for these transplants/donations/etc?
    
    I am not trying to be gory, but I have heard the most likely point
    in the pregnancy to terminate the child is near the end of the first
    trimester or at the beginning of the second trimester.  The most
    common method at this point is dilation and suction and curettage
    and grody stuff like that which I can't see as possibly providing
    anything viable for further use or study.
    
    I can't see why in the world any woman would want to carry a child
    until it was developed enough to "donate", then go through some
    kind of operation to carefully remove the child...for the sole purpose
    of donating it to science.  Echk...
    
    
    did the article mention any answers to these questions?
    
    sorry to be so nuts-and-bolts about this...
    
    -Jody
    

    

    I heard of a case (in California?) where a woman with Parkinson's
    Disease proposed to her physician that she become pregnant, then
    deliberately abort the fetus in order to make use of the fetal
    tissue as treatment for her condition. 
    
    To my mind this brings the various contradictions and moral dilemmas
    of the process into sharp focus. 
    
    Since she proposed a pregnancy with the deliberate INTENT of having
    it aborted, is this immoral based on the "deliberate taking of
    potential life" viewpoint? Or does she have the full right to do
    anything she wants with this tissue, since it's tissue which
    has been an integral part of her body, and since it can be used
    in a way which may improve her quality of life?
    
    Tricky...
    
    It's a lot easier to justify the use of tissue which was "already
    aborted anyway" under circumstances not influenced by the possible
    beneficial use of the fetal tissue. After all, once the fetus is
    dead, any "potential life" it might have had is gone, so that
    argument can be viewed as moot. But ultimately, it becomes very hard
    (impossible) to ensure that no "feedback mechanism" gets set up
    whereby pregnancies are started and aborted principally for the
    provision of fetal tissue. As such, it seems to me that in the
    analysis of this practice one must assume that the abortions ARE
    being performed in order to provide the raw material; there's simply
    no way to prevent it. 

There was a report on a recent All Things Considered on this topic.
As I recall, fetal tissue is not rejected by the person into whom
it is transplanted.

Fetal brain tissue has been experimentally transplanted into persons
suffering from Parkinson's disease.  This tissue produces L-dopamine
(the lack of which causes Prakinson's symptoms) and "thrives" after
transplantation.

I can't recall the other tissue that is transplanted (adrenals, perhaps?)

In both cases, tissue is being used -- nobody is suggesting they can
graft a new foot onto an amputee.

I would suspect that we'll be able to grow such tissue in a factory
within 5-10 years.

Martin.

    RE: .22
    
    Martin, last week on one of those "What's-In-Store-For-The-New-Year"
    type of news stories (on Channel 5, I think), there was a clip
    about a firm in Cambridge doing just that - production of human
    tissue.
    
    From what I recall (I was still a little bleary-eyed from New
    Year's Eve), they were already into the growing of "real" human
    skin.
    
    Within the next few years, they're expecting to be able to
    grow livers, kidneys, and.....
    
    The company is jointly owned by an already-very-successfull businessman
    and a Medical doctor.
    
    I believe the marketing rights to the "real" skin has already been
    acquired by one of the large U.S. pharmaceutical companies.
    
      Alan

    re .22:
    
    I'd like to inject one more fact in here. The fetus that was used
    as the source of the brain tissue was a spontaneous abortion.
    
                                                   
                  /
                 (  ___
                  ) ///
                 /
    

Thanks to the miracle of a Betamax and a timer, I got to watch last
night's Nightline which took up the question of medical ethics.

There was an introductory segment interviewing a medical doctor who
has Parkinson's disease, and one of his daughters who was willing to
get pregnant and abort the foetus if it would help her father.  He
said "no way" to that offer.

Then, Ted Koppel interviewed Dr. Rene Drucker Colin, who performed
the transplant.  As noted, it was taken from a spontaneous abortion.
Also, the mother gave consent and the procedure was approved by
the hospital ethics committee.  Dr. Drucker Colin has no plans to
"purchase" aborted foetuses for this operation.  Using foetal tissue
is an alternative to a procedure using the patients own adrenal glands.
This is a difficult procedure as it requires two simultaneous operations,
which is a problem for the (generally older) patient.

Koppel also interviewed Jeremy Rifkin, who is a lobbyist on technology
issues.  He did not address Dr. Drucker Colin's use of spontaneous
abortion products, but argued about the long-term social questions:
that an "older generation would live off of the spare parts of the
unborn."  Also, Rifkin fears that women will be consuled by doctors
to have abortions to ensure a supply of foetal tissue.

Dr. Drucker Colin pointed out that molecular biology will make cultured
cell products practical in a short time period.  He also broght up the
question of the difficulty of balancing the rights of patients versus
organ doners.  "Physicians must solve the problems of their patients."

Finally, Rifkin recommended that foetal tissue donations be placed
under the control of Uniform Organ Donor Law.  (I believe this requires
informed consent from the individual (before death) or family.)

Martin.

Ps: about 20 years ago, the science fiction writer, Larry Niven, wrote
a series of stories set in a future where three parking tickets branded
you as a sociopath and you were recycled (as it were) to support more
useful citizens.

    At the risk of oversimplifying, I believe the article in .0 is merely
    an example of journalistic sensationalism.  I cannot offer opinions on
    abortion, except for myself; I can't bring myself to tell another woman
    how to handle an unwanted pregnancy.  But it's a documented fact that
    the MAJORITY of pregnancies end in miscarriage!  These miscarriages are
    somewhat un-newsworthy (except to the parents who lost a child), and we
    don't read about them on a daily basis like we do abortion.  But they
    happen, and in very large numbers.  If indeed we discover a medical use
    for fetal tissue, I believe there will be plenty of it available
    -- naturally.
    
    							Pat

    Re: -.1
    
    > But it's a documented fact that the MAJORITY of pregnancies end in
    > miscarriage! 
    
    It follows, therefore, that the majority of abortions are unnecessary.
    The baby would have been lost via miscarriage in more than half
    of the cases anyway (assuming that your facts are correct).  To
    be sure the people who are against abortion count each procedure
    as a lost child.  It may even be the case that many more miscarriages
    happen even before the mother knows she is pregnant.  Were these
    cases counted in the "MAJORITY" above?
    
    I think it should be possible to regulate the use of fetal tissue
    without having to outlaw abortion to remove the source of tissue.
    Just outlaw the use of any tissue when the purpose of the abortion
    is in question.  Don't outlaw the abortion, just outlaw the use
    of the tissue.
    
    					MJC O->

    It does not follow therfore that the majority of abortions are
    unnecessary. That Majority of pregnancies should really be 
    a majority of conceptions.....a lot of that majority occur without
    the woman even being sure she is pregnant.
    
    Bonnie

This is an interesting point...would there have been any 
controversy had the news item used the term "miscarriage" instead 
of "spontaneous abortion"?  Does the public at large know that 
they are one and the same and are not induced abortion?  

In the case of miscarriage, or spontaneous abortion, the use of 
any tissue or organ is the same as in any other case of organ 
donation after death (brain death).  There are other issues, I 
know, but it seems to me that the media, in this case, used 
terminology that created an emotional response, and if that was 
deliberate...it was making news, not reporting it.

Rox

    	According to an article in this morning's Boston Globe or Boston
    Herald the fetal remains from miscarriages can't be used in the
    same manner as those from abortions.  The article didn't go into
    enough detail for me to understand if its author was qualifying
    spontaneous abortions as being equal to induced abortions but -
    and this is a big but - I was lead to believe they were not treatd
    as being equal.
    
    Douglas

    During a natural miscarriage the fetus has been dead for up to two
    weeks before the process begins.  This is probably the reason the
    article lead you to believe that spontaneous and induced abortions
    are not equal. 
                                         - Sue

    Natural miscarriages also include the loss of a fertilized egg before
    it implantswhich would also be usless for transplant purposes......even
    if it could be saved.
    
    Bonnie

    I just found the following in today's VNS.  I am not sure how accurate
    it is, but it makes for strong thinking.  There was a short paragraph
    at the end which I felt detracted from the overall factual nature
    of the letter, so I removed it (obviously the person is against
    abortion).
    
    
    taken from:
    
    <><><><><><><><>  T h e   V O G O N   N e w s   S e r v i c e  <><><><><><><><>

 Edition : 1489              Tuesday 19-Jan-1988     
    
    VNS Letters to the Editor:
==========================

From: Sam Burgess ............................................. Atlanta, GA, USA

Just a comment on the following news item reported Jan 14 1988.

    Mexican neurosurgeons have transplanted tissue from a 13 week old fetus
    into the brain of a 50 year old man suffering from Parkison's disease.

A 13 week Fetus (the Latin word for young one) has several qualities at this
young age that should be noted:

17 days has it's own blood cells, placenta part of baby not the mother,

18 days occasional pulsations of a muscle-this will be the heart

19 days eyes start to develop

10 days foundation of the entire nervous system has been laid down

24 days heart has regular beats or pulsations (legal sign if life) 

28 days 40 pairs of muscles are developed along the trunk of the baby, arms and
legs forming.

30 days regular blood flow within the vascular system; ears and nasal 
development has begun

40 days heart energy output is reported to be almost 20% of an adult

42 days skeleton complete, and reflexes are present

43 days electrical brainwave patterns can be recorded
This is usually ample that "thinking" is taking place in the brain, new life
can be thought of as a thinking person.

49 days appearance of a minature doll, with complete fingers, toes, and ears	
Name changed from embryo to fetus.

56 days all organs functioning- stomach,liver,kidney,brain-all systems intact.
lines in palms, all future development of new life is simply that of refinement
and increase in size until maturity at approx. age 23 years. This is approx.
2 months before "quickening" feeling the baby occurs, yet there is a new life
with all of its parts needing only nourishment. Will usually start to feel 
baby at 4 months

9 and 10 week squints, swallows, retracts tongue

11 - 12 week Arms and legs move, sucks thumb, inhales and exhales amniotic 
fluid, fingernails and toenails appearing

16 weeks genital organs differentiated, grasp with hands, swims, kicks and
turns somersaults (Still not felt by mother)

18 weeks vocal cords work .. can cry

20 weeks Hair appears on head; weight 1 pound; height - 12 inches

A fetus of 10 weeks is not essentially not different that one of 20 or 30 
weeks.


This was taken from an article by Georgia Right to life . Dates were taken from 
medical Journals.

    Without feeding the abortion controversy with my opinion of same,
    I just want to add my pro/con vote, for the record, in this "fetal
    use" debate:
    
    I would not support medical/research etc use of purposefully aborted
    humans - regardless of stated "intent".
    
    This may only be loosely related, but is anyone familiar with the
    tale "A MODEST PROPOSAL" (by Jonathan Swift, perhaps)? It was written
    in the previous century, intended purely as satire, to address the
    subject of providing food for a burgeoning population in England.
    The proposal was simple: If a child could not provide for itself
    (be a productive, working person) by the age of six (or 7, I believe),
    they would be eaten to provide food for the rest of society.
    
    Perhaps you don't see a parallel to the issue at hand in this topic,
    perhaps you do ......
                                          Marvin

    The description of fetal development bothers me.  It does not
    mention when the gills form or when they disappear, nor does it
    mention when the tail forms or (almost always) disappears.  It
    implies that the legs form and the same time as the arms, and this
    is not true.  It says that the vocal cords are functional at 18?
    weeks, but they do not drop into useable position until about six
    months *after* the child is born.
    
    I believe Jonathan Swift is eighteenth century, not nineteenth,
    and he specified *Irish* babies (fattened on potatoes, I presume)
    for table use.  It is one of the most famous satires in the English
    language.  I *think* it may have been written in response to Malthus,
    but I may well be entirely wrong on that point.
    
    							Ann B.

    re .36:
    
    gills never form and then disappear.
    
    at some point there are what appear to be gill slits, but the gills 
    themselves never develop. And the slits are soon closed.
    
    same actually with the "tail", in early development, the spine is
    one of the first things to form, and the body develops on it, the
    body then grows to surround the spine, so it appears for a time
    to possess a tail. But it is not a tail in the true sense, it is
    just that the spine is longer than the body.
                                                
                                                   
                  /
                 (  ___
                  ) ///
                 /
                                                            

    A foetus is potential life, and it is a shame to destroy it.
    
    However, until it is able to sustain its life, it is no different
    than any other organ. If anyone objects to abortion, my suggestion
    is that they volunteer to host the foetus. When medicine has advanced
    to the stage that this can be done practically, there will be a
    "put up or shut up" philosophy (I hope). In the meantime, those
    against abortion will continue to protest, and no doubt will continue
    to abruptly shut up when a close friend or relative gets pregnant
    and is obviously "a special case."
    
    dov

I've often felt, when listening to ranting, raving
anti-abortionists (note: not the people engaged in a discussion,
but those that won't *listen* to any other side than theirs) that
they might feel differently, or reflect more soberly, if they had
to accept fiscal, physical, and emotionally responsibility for the
unborn foetus and the next 18 years of life (22 if you count
college).  It's real easy to talk when it's not close
to home.  

I guess I started thinking this when I was listening to
Jerry Falwell on Ford Hall Forum one day.  What really angered me
about the whole debate was that Falwell would most likely never
be the mother of an unwanted pregnancy -- so how could he presume 
to speak on the behalf on anyone who might be faced with the 
choice of carrying it through or ending it.   

The other thing that really annoys me is that when Pro-lifers
talk, it's anti-ABORTION (assumption:  if given the *choice*,
women will ALWAYS choose abortion.)  The other camp is pro-CHOICE
(when given all the information about all the alternatives, women
will choose what's best for themselves and their families.)  It
feels like apples-and-oranges time to me.  I personally can hold
what opinions *I* have about abortion but I cannot take the
responsibility for usurping someone else's right to decide about
the care of their body. 

Even_if_I_put_myself_in_their_shoes__It's_still_THEIR_shoes.

Roxanne

    another moniker I hate is the anti-abortionists' nickname "Pro-Life",
    obviously not the exact opposite of "pro-choice".  However that
    has the effect that the opposites appear:  pro-choice,
    anti-choice...and pro-life, anti-life (? whoever said pro-choice
    was anti-life???)
    
    sigh.  names can be misleading.  I once saw a bumpersticker that
    said "the moral majority is neither...."
    
    -Jody
    

RE: .38 & 39

"If anyone objects to abortion, my suggestion is that they volunteer to host the
foetus.  In the meantime, those against abortion will continue to protest, and
no doubt will continue to abruptly shut up when a close friend or relative gets
pregnant and is obviously "a special case."" 

"I've often felt, when listening to ranting, raving anti-abortionists that they
might feel differently, or reflect more soberly, if they had to accept fiscal,
physical, and emotionally responsibility for the unborn foetus and the next 18
years of life (22 if you count college)."

There are many much antiabortionists already.  Namely every parent who bore an
unplanned/unwanted baby.

In addition no "antiabortionist" is stating that the child cannot be put up for
adoption once the child is born.  That makes your requirement at least a couple
magnitudes stricter then necessary.

RE: .39

"The other thing that really annoys me is that when Pro-lifers talk, it's
anti-ABORTION (assumption:  if given the *choice*, women will ALWAYS choose
abortion.)  The other camp is pro-CHOICE"

I feel that the correct labels would be "Pro-life" and "Pro-Choice".
"Pro-abortion", "anti-abortion", "anti-life", and "anti-choice" are what we
would prefer to thing of "the other side" as; it makes arguing easier. Would you
agree?

Jim. 
 

    I never felt that anti-abortionists represented "life" at all. 
    

re: .41
>There are many much antiabortionists already.  Namely every parent who bore an
>unplanned/unwanted baby.

	I'd say that was pro-choice.  They had a choice and chose to
	have the unplanned/unwanted baby.  Some of them might have
	chose to have the baby because they thought that abortion was
	wrong.  Anti-choice is when you think it is wrong for you and
	wrong for everyone and you don't want to let others decide
	for themselves.

    These dates are all very nice, but how about corresponding them
    with the dates for reliable pregnancy detection?  I don't know about
    now, but 10 years ago, doctors didn't want to hear from "panicky"
    women until they were 6 weeks late for their menstrual period.
    (Sure, in cases of rape, you might be able to get a "morning-after"
    pill, if you lived in a liberal state; but even the name for that
    was offensive, as if it were for second-thoughts).
    
    The ghosts of women who bore an unwanted child when they
    have much rather have had an abortion crowd me.  I can never forget
    them.  Many of them didn't even have a "choice" about not to have
    sex.

    Just a couple of thoughts ......
    I think we all have friends or know people who represent both sides
    of the controversy. I have found "ranting and raving" representative
    of both camps, depending on whose involved.
    
    It is a very complex consideration, there are misleading statistics
    dredged up on both sides to validate perspective - after all,
    statistics are a common weapon in any debate. The labels we attach
    to the representative parties are often purposeful euphemisms, designed
    to draw the uncommitted into the respective camps. Pro-life certainly
    sounds attractive, as does pro-choice ..... depending on your
    perspective. But the overall issue boils down to responsibility,
    both social and individual; much needs to be resolved at both levels
    to make the decision of abortion irrelevant.
    
    I'm relatively certain women aren't out there becoming pregnant
    just so they can have abortions, or have to face the possibility
    of such an event. I realize the extent of criminally induced
    pregnancies is miniscule, that the majority of abortion considerations
    are really related to irresponsible procreative attitudes (men
    certainly as responsible as women in this, if not *more* so). I
    have taken my stand in the issue, and I know it isn't "popular",
    but in this stand I tend to focus on responsibility, which is really
    pro-choice, but not a choice for irresponsible attitudes that result
    in unwanted pregnancies.
                                       Marvin

    	Since there is no method of birth control that is 100% 
    	effective other than abstinance, are you saying that the
    	only time to have responsible sex is if you are attempting
    	to make a baby.  In other words, sex only for pro-creation?
    	So if a woman is fertile from age 13 to 45, then in 32 years
    	she should only have intercourse equal to the number of times
    	it takes to get pregnant with each child she wants to have.
    	So if she wants 2 children and is responsible, and if she is
    	(un)lucky she will have intercourse twice in 32 years?
    	Do you think it is likely for such a marriage to be happy?
 	  I know there are no easy or good answers.  Science has not
    	provided a solution.  But taking the above stance will leave some
    	woman with two options, have unwanted chidren and be miserable,
    	but accept it, or get the abortion and feel guilty because you
    	were "irresponsible".  I just have a hard time accepting that
    	that is *anyone's* lot in life.

RE: .42

"I never felt that anti-abortionists represented "life" at all."

Can you say why you feel that?

How do you think that a pro-life person should act?

I wonder if the other side feels that the other other side doesn't represent
"choice"...

RE: .43

"I'd say that was pro-choice.  They had a choice and chose to have the
unplanned/ unwanted baby." 

Not necessarily.  A couple who suddenly find themselves pregnant may decide to
have the baby because they want it, and may be pro or anti anything, or they may
have the baby because they do not feel that there is a choice.  I would say that
the latter is pro-life & anti-choice 

"Anti-choice is when you think it is wrong for you and wrong for everyone and
you don't want to let others decide for themselves."

What would you think the correct pro-life stance should be?

RE: .44

"The ghosts of women who bore an unwanted child when they have much rather have
had an abortion crowd me."

Does anyone ever consider the fathers?  Is there any information on that? :-| 

RE: .46

"Since there is no method of birth control that is 100% effective other than
abstinance, are you saying that the only time to have responsible sex is if you
are attempting to make a baby."

I don't understand how you logically get from point A to point B.  Could you
elaborate your chain of logic?

Jim. 

    
        I saw something incredibly scary the other night.  It was on CNN
    (cable network news).  A man who heads up one of these anti-abortion
    leagues was talking about how his group not only works within the
    boundaries of the law, but also pushes these boundaries to their
    absolute limit (beyond in some cases, I believe.....because he said 
    he thanks God every time an abortion clinic is bombed and the abortion 
    clinic staff's houses are vandalized.
    
    It's a very scary world.  Don't the people who are against legalized
    abortion realize that even if it is outlawed, people will seek them
    anyway?  And that the alternative to the at least tolerable (although
    sometimes emotionally/physically painful) conditions that are available
    to people who seek abortions now are back-alley mutilators and
    out-of-country abortions?  If someone decides not to have an abortion
    themself, let them.  But they have no right to stop me, either legally,
    morally, or religiously.  NONE!
    
    There is a movie out called "The Silent Scream", it shows a fetus
    undergoing abortion, and how it "tries to push the extracting device
    away" and "opens its mouth as if to scream".  It seems to "be in
    pain".  I once saw on PBS a special on fetal development, which
    stated quite clearly that although the nerves are quite in place
    early on in the gestation, the connections from the nerves to the
    brain which can transmit pain are not in place until the 6th month.
    
    There was a place in Worcester near where one of the clinics was
    (Planned Parenthood) that was on the same floor, and on the way to PP
    from the elevator. It was called "Parental Planning" or something, had
    the misleading "PP" on the door, and when women wanted to go to Planned
    Parenthood they'd reach out the door, bring in the confused woman, and
    start lecturing on the evils of abortion and birth control and stuff
    and try to convince them to have the baby.  Of course, once the
    women realized they were in the wrong place, they left in a panicked
    state.  ACKKK!!!
    
    You ask how a pro-life person should act.  In my opinion, a pro-life 
    person should work to encourage birth control, so that all
    babies that are conceived are conceived only when the parents want to.
    A pro-life person should state their case as clearly as possible, to as
    many people who will listen.  They should work towards making adoption
    easier.  They should not force people who do get pregnant to suffer the
    rest of their lives for it!  Obviously, the people who do not wish
    abortion cannot honestly be labeled "pro-life"...the outcome of
    their actions may well be to ruin several lives simultaneously by
    inflicting a life of unhappiness on parents who do not want a child,
    and on a child who must struggle to grow up normally because it was not
    wanted.  
    
    NO ONE has the right to tell me what to do with MY body.
    
    End of tirade.
    
    -Jody
    

    Both the term pro-choice and pro-life have pejorative implications.
    
    The pro-choice people are implying that their opponents are anti-choice.
    
    The pro-life people are implying that their opponents are anti-life.
    
    So, you are either anti-choice (a fascist) or anti-life (a murderer).
    
    Elizabeth

There is a more worrying thing about  the extreme fringe of the ("right wing 
religious") anti-abortion groups. [I'm referring to those who go around 
bombing and vandalizing abortion clinics, and harrassing patients and people
who work there].

 A lot of these extremists claim that "God talks to me" and "God told me 
to bomb the clinic on 4th and Chestnut". It has even been offerred as a 
defence in courts of law (in Florida, I think). Thus, in breaking many of our 
civil laws, these nutcases claim "to be on a mission from God". Once you mix
religion and poiltics, you're in real trouble. 

 Frankly, [Nigel's opinion], anyone who claims "God talks to me" is probably
on the verge of needing psychiatric care. Anyone who claims that "God" tells
them to destroy abortion clinics is certifiably insane. 

		Nigel

ps: My feeling on abortion is: I'll never need one, but if you do, you should
be given the choice; you should be counselled and helped in whatever decision
you choose to make. Such a decision is hard enough -- we should NOT make it 
any harder.

  > The pro-choice people are implying that their opponents are
  > anti-choice. 
    
    Well, aren't they?  If they aren't anti-choice, then what choice
    DO they advocate?
    
    I'm not talking about choices regarding the disposition of the baby
    after it is born.  I'm talking about choices regarding the pregnancy
    itself.  Just what choices do the pro-lifers offer?
    
    							Pat

    Well I can't say for sure...but if .51 wasn't Nigel's note then
    the author of the original .51 must have deleted it right after
    entering it.
    Bonnie

It was me all along, I'm afraid.  I entered .51 (with the blood pounding in
my fingers) and then decided to check with a moderator as to whether it was
too contentious for the file.  Liz A said it was OK to leave it in, so I 
set it unhidden.

 Maybe one of you moderator-types could delete this whole sub-string!
I'd sent mail to Pat explaining my action and hoped to get it before the
rest of the net started querying the "disapperaing note"

				Nigel

RE: .48

"Don't the people who are against legalized abortion realize that even if it is
outlawed, people will seek them anyway?"

I believe most anti-abortion people feel that less people will seek out
abortions if they are outlawed.

Thank you for your thoughts on how a pro-life person should act.

I think that many pro-life people feel justified in using any methods to prevent
an abortion that might be used to prevent a murder.  Is the only important
difference that Abortion is legal, and Murder is not?

"They should not force people who do get pregnant to suffer the rest of their
lives for it!"

I do not feel that anti-abortion people wish people to suffer for a pregnancy
for the rest of their lives.  I think that they merely want the baby to be born.

"Obviously, the people who do not wish abortion cannot honestly be labeled
"pro-life""

Could you explain this a bit more?

Do you think that making adoption easy would solve the problem?  Could adoption
take the place of what abortion does? 

RE: .49

What about "pro-abortion", and "pro-..." was there another one?

RE: .52

"Just what choices do the pro-lifers offer?"

The choice to keep the baby or not after the child is born.  Is that sufficient
choice?  Life does not offer infinite choices.  I count my blessings for each of
my alternatives.  The term "Hobson's Choice" is where you are given the choice
between a choice of something you don't want, and no choice.

Jim. 

    If I became pregnant and I did not wish to keep the child, I certainly
    would not want to go through 9 months of being pregnant just to
    give it to someone else.  As a matter of fact, I am drug-dependent
    due to all my allergies, and I'm not even sure the baby would LIVE
    to see 9 months if I didn't make the conscious decision (under a
    doctor's supervision) to try and wean myself from my drugs prior
    to conception.  And if it DID live to see 9 months I wonder if it
    would be normal.  It's not a risk I'd wish to take.
    
    -Jody
    
    

    Jim,
    
    From what other women have written to me agencies make it very
    difficult for women who want to give babies up for adoption.
    I am not intending to debate the merits or wisdom of their doing
    this but only to point out that even when woman *wants* to give
    the child for adoption it isn't easy procedurally (much less
    emotionally!)
    
    Bonnie

> What about "pro-abortion", and "pro-..." was there another one?
    
    "Pro-abortion" is not a valid term. Many (and I'd be willing to
    bet that "most" applies) pro-choice people are not in favor of
    abortion per se. They are only in favor of allowing the woman to
    choose for herself.
    
    *I*, for one, am not in *favor* of abortion except when the mother's
    life is in danger. There are other circumstances (rape, incest,
    etc.) where I do not find it a desirable option, but a justifiable
    one. In any other circumstance, I do not approve of it, but I
    still feel that it's the woman's right to choose whether she
    wants one or not.
    
    That's what being pro-choice is about.
			  ^^^^^^
    
    --- jerry

RE: .58

"From what other women have written to me agencies make it very difficult for
women who want to give babies up for adoption."

I don't believe that I said it was easy...  in any case, I did not mean to say
that it was.

Umm...  Can I ask how agencies do make it difficult to give a baby up for
adoption?  I don't know much about the procedure.  Why would an adoption agency
do that?  Is there any way to make it easier? 

Jim.

 

Um.  This is all very interesting, but it is definately off the subject.
The base noter did request that this not be a topic on abortion, per se.
Likewise I would think that adoption issues belong elsewhere.  I am all 
for this discussion, but could we move it elsewhere?

As for the original topic, I still think that we could pass laws that 
keep a woman from gaining money from the fetus and also disallow her to 
specify the recipient of the tissue, and that this would solve most 
people's apprehensions.

            Carol

    re: .60 
    
    We discussed the way adoption agencies treat unwed mothers in some
    detail last year in April or May (I think as an aside to the abortion
    note). It was a very rewarding discussion, but I for one would prefer
    not to repeat the things I said then, as it's still painful for me to
    think about. 
    
    --bonnie

The following is an article from TIME magazines February 1st issue.  It
deals a little more with the facts and a little less with the propaganda
of the first article in this topic.  It still, however, is a tough issue.

Reprinted without permission:


                                    ETHICS

                      A Balancing Act of Life and Death

"New uses of fetuses and brain-absent babies trouble doctors"

"After years of research, doctors feel they are ready to try to alleviate
many incurable conditions, ranging from congenital heart defects to
degenerative nerve diseases, through the transplanting of organs and tissues.
Their pioneering triumphs, however, have created a FAUSTIAN dilemma.  Each
year in the U.S. hundreds of infants die who could have been saved by a
new heart; literally millions of people with diseases like Parkinson's and
Alzheimer's may eventually benefit from tissue implants.  Should physicians
manipulate the definitions of life and death to meet this growing demand
for donor tissue?  The question is taking on a new immediacy as doctors
begin transplanting tissue from once unimagined sources: aborted fetuses
and anencephalic newborns.

"Sugeons at Loma Linda University Medical Center in California only last
October transplanted a heart into Newborn Paul Hoc.  What made the transplant
different was that the donor, a Canadian infant known as Baby Gabriel, was born
anencephalic, that is, without most of her brain.  Like virtually all
anencephalics, she could not have survived more than a few days outside
of the womb; unlike most, Gabriel died before her healthy organs deteriorated.
Then, early in January, surgeons in Mexico City announced that for the first
time, they had successfully grafted tissue from a miscarried fetus into
the brains of two Parkinson's victims, who have since improved dramatically.

"To many, the fetal-tissue transplant raised a troubling question: Should
doctors be allowed to use tissue from intentionally aborted fetuses to
alleviate an otherwise hopeless condition?  The Baby Gabriel case focused
on even knottier dilemmas: Shoul laws defining death be rewritten to allow
the "harvesting" of anencephalic donors?  Should their existence be rpolonged
solely to enable doctors to take their organs?

"Such issues are not academic.  In the past few months, TIME has learned, Baby
Gabriel's Canadian physicians kep three other anencephalic children on
respirators in order to use their organs for transplantation.  "I can't imagine
a time when there have been so many advances in medical research that have
raised such serious issues," says Neonatologist Lawrence Platt of the
University of Southern California.  Declares Arthur Caplan, director of
the Center for Boimedical Ethics at the University of Minnesota: "Our fear
is that somehow reproduction has shifted away from an act that creates a
family into an arenaa in chich money, profit and benefit for others start
to enter."

"Parents of anencephalics have been in the forefron of the campaign to make
use of their infants' organs, as a way of making their brief, tragic lives
meaningful.  Such babis are often born with no skin or skull above their
eyes.  They have only an exposed bud of a brain and a brain stem that keeps
their heart and lungs working erratically.  Under current state laws,
death occurs when all brain activity has ceased.  Anenecephalic infants
are technically alive until their brain stem stops functioning.  By then
however, the increasingly insufficient oxygen supply has ruined any potentially
useful organs.

"For some doctors, the repirator is an ideal solution: it assures a proper
oxygen supply while putting off the infant's inevitable death.  "There is
no ehtical problem with using the organs after the child is dead," says
George Annas, profeesor of health law at Boston University School of Medicine.
"The problem lies in the process of getting the child from alive to dead."
There are certainly precedents for keeping donors alive artificially for
the benefit of others.  Accident victims, for example, are frequently kept
on respirators to keep their organs fresh. 

"But the problem with annencephalics is starkly different: doctors frequently
do not know when death has legally occurred.  Conventional measures of brain
death are useless.  Ethicist Caplan suggests that doctors rely on an older
stnadard: that death occurs when the infants pulse and breathing have stopped.
Thus anencephalics would be taken off the respirator at set intervals to see
whether spontaneous breathing had ceased.  When it stopped, the infants would
be pronounced dead and their organs taken.  The few medical centers like Loma
Linda that handle anencephalic transplants currently follow similar protocols.

"The principal difference between using anenecephalics and aborted fetuses
as sources for organs, Caplan syas, is a metter of parental motive.  Few
docotrs have problems with using the tissues of miscarried fetuses.  But
in the weeks since the Mexican tissue transplant, a handful of women have
considered the possibility of getting pregnant for the purose of providing
tissue to treat themselves or a family member.  Ray Leith, a young woman
whose aging father has Parkinson's disease, delared her willingness to do
so on national television early this year; her father refused the offer.
Others have raised eve broader fears that, as Feminist Author Gena Corea
puts it, "women will be pressured by doctors and families, or by economic
need, to become fetal factories."

"To prevent such abuses, doctors and ethicists suggest banning the sale
of fetal tissue worldwide and prohibiting women from desgnating who would
receive their fetus' organs.  Once such safeguards are in plac, however,
they believe that physicians can properly use tissue from abortuses for
research and treatment.  Except in the case of miscarriages, Dr. John Willke,
president of the National Right to Life Committee, vehemently disagrees.
:The abuse is not in the sale of those tissues," he says, "but in killing
the baby in the first place."  Janice Raymond, professer of women's studies
at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, is concerned that such
attitudes, as well as prctices like surrogate motherhood, have already begun
to erode women's control over the childbearing process.  "No one is holding
a gun to any woman," she says. "But I think it's important to look at the
entire context in which this issue of fetal tissue is arising." That may
be easier said than done."

-By Christine Gorman.  Reported by James Willwerth/Loma Linda and Suzanne
Wymelenberg/Boston.


    

    Pro-choice is just as biased, from its perspective, as is Pro-life.
    People who call themselves pro-life are arguing that abortion is
    wrong because the foetus represents a HUMAN LIFE. Given that fact,
    they have every right to deny people the right to an abortion. After
    all, it's *murder*. I don't think anyone here is _for_ that kind
    of choice.
    
    I, for one, do not agree that a foetus is alive. I pointed out that
    even Pro-lifers have had a lousy consistency record when someone
    they know personally is affected. But this does not affect the validity
    of their viewpoint, assuming their premise is ok.
    
    The flaw is: when do foetuses become babies? If you can keep someone
    alive on a respirator, and they have a good chance of surviving
    and returning from a coma, say, you have no right to pull
    the plug (in my opinion). What is different about a foetus? If you
    keep it alive a while, it will be able to survive on its own. I
    do not know how to resolve this issue, and as such, abortion is
    not something I would call "desirable" but since the alternative
    is damaging to someone else, someone who is fully functional, I
    say abortion should be legal.

    Suppose for a moment that you were recently a kidney donor. A year
    later your doctor finds that you once again have two kidneys, i.e.
    "it grew back". After some tests, it is determined that you have
    the ability to regrow organs.
    
    Would it be wrong to then offer your organs for money?
    Money seems a fair recompense for undergoing the risks of surgery.
                                                   
                  /
                 (  ___
                  ) ///
                 /
    

RE: .64

"abortion is not something I would call "desirable" but since the alternative is
damaging to someone else, someone who is fully functional, I say abortion should
be legal."

What exactly are you refering to when you speak of "damaging to someone else"?
You might want to keep in mind that the pro-life people feel that abortion is
"damaging to someone else", namely the baby...

Jim. 

    The question as I see it is NOT whether abortion is right or wrong. The
    question, rather, is whether the pro-lifer has the right to play God
    and tell everyone else how to live their lives.  I for one do NOT,
    repeat NOT, believe in abortion.  But I am not presumptious enough to
    try and force my beliefs on other women.  Just as I have a right
    to my own value system and my own beliefs, so do others have that
    same right.
    
    						Pat Resende

    Pat,
    Thanks (and thanks to others who've expressed similar opinions).
    It's people like you who make it easier for all of us to live together
    peacefully...
    
    Liz

Another article to carry out the theme for your comments please.....


DATELINE:  3 Feb 1988 MIDDLESEX NEWS


		PLANNED PARENTHOOD EYES 'master race' - ROBERTSON


Associated Press
CONCORD,NH 

Republican presidential contender Pat Robertson charged yesterday that
the long-range goal of the family planning group Planned Parenthood is
creation of a "master race."  

Faye Wattleton, president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America,
said, "All the charges  are unfounded and, frankly, ridiculous."

In a room overflowing with abortion foes, the former television evangelist
told a New Hampshire legislative committee he strongly opposes a bill to 
repeal old state anti-abortion laws and codify the US Supreme Court ruling
legalizing abortion into state law.

At one point, Robertson was asked if he supports continued federal funding
for non-abortion programs of Planned Parenthood.  He replied:

	"Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, was an advocate
of what was called eugenics.  She and her disciples wanted to sterilize blacks,
Jews, mental defectives and fundamentalist Christians.  I don't really favor
getting myself sterilized.  And I certainly dont'favor the programs of the
Nazis.

	But some of her literature undergirded the genetic experiments of
Adolf Hitler.  The long-range goal of Planned Parenthood...in my estimation,
is to provide a master race."

    re: -.1
    
    scary stuff.  To me it sounds like hogwash.
    
    Makes me glad there's a separation between church and state, to
    hear a religious person with designs on the presidency speak like
    that.
    
    That may be what he believes, but I doubt he can back it up with
    statistics on the various races he mentions and what services have
    been rendered to them by PP.
    
    
    -Jody
    

    It is hard to believe anything Pat Robertson says...one of his campaign
    stands is "To increase the birth rate so that there are more taxpayers
    and thus eliminate the social security crunch".
    
    Let's be serious!

    Pat Robertson is not one of my favorite people and but there is
    some logic around the current birth rate here in United States.
    
    When you have many good prospective parents choosing not to have
    children and many poor parents having children a situation begins
    which will have a bearing on not only our tax structure but our
    whole system of government and way of life.
    
    If the majority of the entering work force in the next twenty years
    is uneducated, unmotivated and unskilled because of poor home
    situations we will have a catastrophe.
    
    Boston is feeling this right now.  There are not enough people to
    fill the entry level positions and service positions.  There are
    not enough young people willing to or able to work.  
    
    I do not have a solution, I have a hope that the natural process
    of instinctive reproduction will occur and this will change.  
    
    The other obvious solution would be to develop programs in the early
    development years for children who are in situations that could
    cause delayed development.  These children are an available resource
    and I cannot for the love of me understand the concept of aid to
    contras when we have children living in the streets and less then
    desirable living conditions.

    I read Robertson's statement, too - what nonsense!  If he were to
    get elected, I'd find a job outside the U.S. for four years (I'm
    sure he'd NEVER get re-elected!) - I'm serious!  As much as I love
    this country, I'm sure there would be no place in it for a Jewish
    professional career woman under an administration like that.
    
    I'd like to think that the citizens of this country have more sense
    than to vote into office a religious dictatorship - people who really
    *like* that form of government should move to Iran...unless, of
    course, they already live there, unless they are not a member of
    the majority religion in a place like that (OK, so I know some Iranian
    Jews - it's not a pretty picture, and it would be even less pretty
    to my eyes in my own homeland).

    Joyce, I'd like to gently question your logic. 
    
    I don't know if you've heard of the "eugenics" movement -- they
    use arguments similar to yours to encourage sterilization of
    "undesirables" and high levels of reproduction among the "upper
    classes". Arguments similar to yours have also been used in an effort
    to induce guilt in "good prospective parents" and to help women
    return to "barefoot and pregnant" mode.
    
    It's interesting that you talk about "poor" parents as being the
    opposite of "good prospective" parents and then imply that "poor home
    situations" produce "uneducated, unmotivated and unskilled" people.
    This seems blatantly unfair. There are plenty of homes that are
    financially rich but emotionally deprived. There are plenty of families
    where there isn't a lot of money to spare, but there's lots of love to
    go around. Are you saying that "poor" people have a moral obligation to
    have fewer children? Are you saying that "good prospective" parents
    have a moral obligation to produce more? 
    
    The next logical leap that I'm having trouble with is that because
    many Boston children come from poor families (at least I assume
    that this is what you've implied), there's a shortage of people
    to fill entry level positions and service positions. Do you really
    believe that if "good prospective" parents produce more, that this
    problem will be solved (i.e., that there will be more "educated,
    motivated and skilled" people in Boston who will want entry-level
    and service positions?)
    
    
    Confused
    Liz 

    Liz, I didn't think that Joyce was saying that 'poor' (economically)
    parents were not good prospective parents and that wealthy people
    (by logical extension) were good prospective parents.
    
    Can you clarify for us, Joyce?
    
    Re. Margaret Sanger -
    
    If we looked at the politics and philosophies of many people who
    *founded* organizations without looking at the way the organization has
    developed and behaved over time, I think we would be unpleasantly
    surprised in a number of cases.  They need to discuss the goals
    and actions of PP today. 

    Re .74:  (Liz)
    
    I think you are slightly overreacting.  Obviously, if everything
    else is equal, more money makes for a better home environment. 
    
    While wealth does not make a good parent, a child growing up in a poor
    family may be forced into the work force without adequate education and
    job skills.  He/she may have had to work part time (or full time) to
    stay in school as long as she/he could, thus having a somewhat negative
    impact on their schoolwork.  Wealthier children may not have to make
    the choice of "work overtime and not do homework, or refuse overtime
    and lose my job." 
    
    Poorer neighborhoods tend to have less organized activities and
    policing.  This in leads to less-than-optimal youth activities and
    development, possibly leading to bad attitudes and disinterest in
    worthwhile activities.
    
    Still, I think that the "good perspective parents" argument is used to
    pressure people into becoming parents who don't want to be (yet/again),
    as well as the logical extension of that to "good mother's can't leave
    their children with strangers and work - that's SELFISH", with the
    outcome (intended or not) of putting many educated, productive women
    back into the housewifey mode. 
    
    Elizabeth

    First of all when I talk about 'poor' parents I mean parents who
    have children and do not spend the time or energy necessary to nurture
    and raise those children to be productive adults.  I think my example
    of the situation in Boston might lend one to think that not only
    are many of the parents of Boston's children 'poor' parents they
    are also poor financially.
    
    I am afraid there is a lot of truth in my argument and to deny that
    is extremely unrealistic, but what I suggest is that we do
    something with the children that are being born.  If anyone feels
    guilty with my argument, it is my feeling that you haven't truly
    worked out your decision not to have children.  And I suggest this
    very gently as I believe there are biological influences that put
    a lot of pressure on logical decisions.
    
    Although my children have been the best part of my life I have seen
    enough abuse of children from financially stable families as well
    as families without many resources that I respect a couples decision
    to not reproduce.
    
    I often feel guilty on my side.  After all four children was
    2 more than I was entitled to.

    Institutions such as restaurants, department stores and other entry
    level positions have traditionally relied on youth in part time
    situations for their staffing requirements.  Many good parents encourage
    and sometimes even insist that their young people begin their work
    experience in these positions.  When I was 15 and 16 these jobs
    were dear and it was quite a status to have a real part time job.
    I was a lowly baby sitter.
    
    I must admit my argument about poor parenting does not fully explain
    the lack of individuals for these jobs in Boston.  The economy has
    changed significantly and there are far more positions then there
    has ever been in the past.  But there are many young people in this
    city and in other cities who do not have a work ethic and are not
    encouraged to apply for these positions.  It is my feeling if we
    got to these young people when they are young and develop their
    sense of values they will fill many needed slots.  

    joyce,
    thanks very much for clarifying. this dearth of entry level workers
    is relatively recent -- i, too, had trouble finding a no-skill job
    not too long ago. you're right about pressures to have kids -- right 
    now, the social pressures are much greater than the biological ones.
        
    take care
    liz

    Reply to .72 JLamotte,
    
    >When you have many good prospective parents choosing not to have
    >children and many poor parents having children a situation begins
    >which will have a bearing on not only our tax structure but our
    >whole system of government and way of life.
     
    This seems to be a problem in the tax structure, not with people.
    People should drive the society, not the other way around. There are
    ample solutions, but people haven't driven their elected
    representatives hard enough to force the solutions into the public eye.
    Too many empires would fall should Washington do something intelligent.

RE: .74

I see your point that simply equating 'good' parents with 'moneyed' parents does
not work.  I think a difference that we have now is that more people are
choosing *not* to have children, and that cuts down on the number of parents who
would be financially good parents, but psychologically bad parents.  I don't
know if we are having more or less parents who are financially bad parents, but
psychologically good parents.

Regardless of the misinterpretations of motives that can be drawn from the idea,
the idea of trying to promote good parents, and discurage poor parenting is a
good one.

I believe that 'poor' (not neccessarily financially oor) home situation do
produce "undeucated, unmotivated and unskilled" people.  I do think that 'poor'
parents should have less children, and 'good' parents should have more.  But I
don't think they should feel pushed into it... if they feel pushed into it, that
pretty much puts them into the other category. 

Jim.

    How about that Pat Robertson (second by Iowa's voting)?


     Well, if we're going to use some quotes,  I'ld  prefer  to  get  some  from
sources I believe.  So, here's a quote from the book "Images of Women in Popular
Culture," the article is titled "Is Race Suicide Probable?"

And the blurb at the top says:

     Margaret Sanger  (1879-1966)  spent  most  of  her  life  working  for  the
legalization  of  {my  note:  not enforcement of, Mr.  Robertson} birth control.
In 1916, when the Comstock law prohibited the sale of contraceptives, she opened
the  first  birth  control clinic in the United States.  By allying herself with
the health professionals, she gradually gained support for  her  cause,  and  in
1936,  the  courts upheld the right of the medical professions to dispense birth
control information.   The  endorsement  of  the  American  Medical  Association
followed within the year.

     Sanger maintained that she was most concerned  with  freeing  working-class
women  from  "involuntary  motherhood" by permitting them control over their own
bodies.  The availability of birth control information would also allow women to
express  their  sexuality  more fully, since the fear of pregnancy, according to
Sanger explained in some part the myth of female passivity.

     A major objection to the legalization of birth control was that the country
would  become  depopulated.   Sanger's  response  to  that  objection  is  based
partially on eugenics, the improvement of heredity through genetic control.  The
fact  that  this  debate  was carried on in the pages of "Collier's," one of the
most popular magazines of its day, is indicative of the wide public interest  in
these issues.



And the article says:

     The people of the United States have been  warned  against  the  menace  of
birth  control.   If  they  exercise  intelligent  self-discipline,  it is said,
Americans may bring this country to destruction through depopulation.  The  fear
that  the present rate of increase in the population of the United States may be
decreased and that our population may indeed be brought to a standstill  through
the  practice  of  birth conrtol is hardly substantiated by the last estimate of
the Bureau of Census.  Within the last five years there has been an increase  in
our native population of approximately 6,000,000 or 1,200,000 a year.

     We are a nation of business men  and  women.   We  believe  in  efficiency,
accuracy,  and  sound  economic policy.  If this is so, it strikes me that it is
high time that not only American science but American business  as  well  should
begin  to  analyze  the  cost  to  the  community of the haphazard, traditional,
happy-go-lucky  methods   in   producing   the   Americans   of   to-morrow--the
laissez-faire  policy  approved by those who forget that the Biblical injunction
"be fruitful and multiply" was given to Noah immediately after the Flood,  when,
according  to  the  Biblical  narrative,  the entire population of the globe was
eight.

     It has been conservatively estimated that no less than one quarter  of  the
gross  incomes  of  our  states  is  expended upon the upkeep of asylums for the
feeble-minded and insane, the mentally defective, the criminal, the congenitally
defective,  the  delinquent  and  the  dependent.   We  are  spending  billions,
literally billions, keeping alive thousands who never, in all human  compassion,
should  have  been brought into this world.  We are spending more in maintaining
morons than in developing the inherent  talents  of  gifted  children.   We  are
coddling the incurably defective and neglecting potential geniuses.

     We have not chosen this Sysphean task; it has been forced on us because  we
have  left  the production of American children to *chance*, instead of bringing
this most important of all human functions within the sphere of *choice*.

     Until the leaders of American business decide to cooperate in this analysis
of  our  biological and racial problems {my note:  this does seem to be equating
race with certain characteristics?} we shall be at a loss to answer such critics
as  Luther  Burbank,  to  whom  American  civilization is deeply indebted.  In a
recent interview he is quoted as asserting:

     "America...is like a garden in which the gardner pays no attention  to  the
weeds.   Our  criminals  are  our  weeds, and weeds breed fast and are intensely
hardy.  They must be eliminated.  Stop permitting  criminals  and  weaklings  to
reproduce.   All  over  the  country  to-day we have enormous insane asylums and
similar institutions  where  we  nourish  the  unfit  and  criminal  instead  of
exterminating  them.   Nature  eliminates  the  weeds,  but  we  turn  them into
parasites and allow them to reproduce."

     Could any business maintain itself with the burden of such  an  "overhead"?
Could  any  breeder  of live stock conduct his enterprise on such a basis?  I do
not think so.

     It is one of the bad habits of  us  Americans  to  estimate  everything  by
magnitude,  in  terms of millions and billions.  But in the matter of increasing
population we must hesitate before throwing bouquets at ourselves.  I am  not  a
calamity  howler,  and I think my vision of the future of America is as cheerful
as anyone's.  But let me conclude with the emphatic statement of  my  conviction
that  a  mere  increase in population has nothing to do with progress, nor can a
decreasing birth rate by any stretch of the imagination  be  interpreted  as  an
omen of national calamity.

     August 15, 1925.  Reprinted without the permission of Grant Sanger, M.D.



     Now, let's discuss  Robertson's  claim  that  Sanger  and,  therefore  (!),
Planned Parenthood is setting out to create a 'master race.'
                                                           
     Tamar

     In the article, Sanger writes:



      Until the leaders  of  American  business  decide  to  cooperate  in  this

      analysis  of  our  biological and racial problems we shall be at a loss to

      answer such critics as Luther Burbank, to whom  American  civilization  is

      deeply indebted.  In a recent interview he is quoted as asserting:



           "America...is like a garden in which the gardner pays no attention to

      the  weeds.   Our  criminals  are  our weeds, and weeds breed fast and are

      intensely hardy.  They must be eliminated.  Stop permitting criminals  and

      weaklings to reproduce..."



     Now, Sanger makes no special reference to a 'master race,'  yet  what  does

"racial  problems"  refer  to?   I  understand it to refer to the paragraph that

follows.  And so she is saying,  an  'analysis  of  our  biological  and  racial

problems' will prevent 'criminals and weaklings' from reproducing???



     I have problems with that thought even when I remembered *why* this article

was  written:   to  appeal  for the *legalization* of birth control!  How do you

approach people who think birth control is wrong?  Say it will help  women  gain

control  of  their  bodies  and  their  selves?   I doubt that would have been a

selling point.



     Hmmm.



     Tamar

    Sangers ideas were those commonly held by the college educated of
    the time. I don't feel that it is reasonable to condem Planned
    Parenthood today for attitudes that were considered reasonable
    and respectable at the time of its founding. I rather doubt
    that most organizations would stand up to close scrutiny of all
    the public pronouncements of their founders.
    

    More thoughts, not connected to anything:
    
    Certainly women of all ages, races, and economic conditions must have
    the right to birth control.  Planned Parenthood has done good work in
    providing choices to women who would otherwise have been caught in the
    childbearing trap. 
    
    But any time you're talking about eugenics, about improving the human
    species, about weakening the genetic pool, or about problems such as
    criminal behavior and emotional illness as having genetic causes,
    you're wide open to charges of wanting to create a master race or to
    eliminate other races. 
    
    The principles are the same.  The mechanics are the same.  Only
    the intent and purpose differs.  And in this case, I'm not sure
    that intent matters.
    
    A person or agency that wants to help others is wide open to the
    trap of pushing help onto people who don't want it.  And no matter
    how good that might be for the recipient, it violates her right
    to her own choice.
    
    For example, if a high-school-age woman goes into Planned Parenthood
    for counselling for an unplanned pregnancy, she is much more likely to
    be encouraged to have an abortion if she's black than if she's white.
    There are very good and compassionate reasons for this.  Having a child
    limits your chances to finish high school and get an education, which
    in turn limits your career opportunities, which in turn limits your
    ability to care for your child, which in turn pushes you down the cycle
    of 'feminization of poverty.'  A white girl is much more likely to be
    able to overcome such disadvantages. 
    
    Someone who wanted to eventually eliminate blacks entirely would
    probably behave in just about the same way.  That person's reasons
    would be different, but the results would be the same.
    
    You read often enough about white-run medical clinics in third-world
    countries sterilizing young women as a birth-control measure *without
    informing the women what they're doing.*  Again, for the best of
    reasons -- playing God. 

    What does all this mean?  I don't know.  Perhaps only that compassion
    is only a short step from meddling.
    
    --bonnie

RE: .82

That does sound quite a bit like eugenics... (I'm not saying it is)
I have to agree with Bonnie...

RE: birth control...

I must say that I feel as persecuted as any woman when it comes to birth
control.  Make that *more*; I have *fewer* options of birth control then any
woman.

Jim.

    Earlier this year, when I was home during a pregnancy leave, the
    TODAY show was in China.  One of the things that I thought was real
    strange is their (China's)  birth control policy that the government
    was trying to get started.
    
    
    If I can remember correctly,  it was said that only one child was
    allowed per family and that the people of China were having to go
    to birth control clinics where the government was financing the
    costs of birth control methods.  If there was a 2nd pregnancy, the
    government paid for the abortion, and that if the Mother decided
    that she did not want an abortion, then the family income would
    be penalized, and they would lose a percentage of there income,
    making it even harder to support the new baby.  I may not be
    completely correct on all of these facts here, but it seemed like
    the government itself was pushing for abortion.   Am I wrong?  Does
    anyone else know anything else about this issue.
    
    I am not making any comment here on whether I consider abortion
    right or wrong, but I do feel like its the individuals choice, and
    that no one (especially a government) should be making that type
    of decision.
    
    Sarah

    Your impressions were correct. In fact in China women who are
    pregnant for a second time are under a *great& deal of pressure
    to abort, even right up to term.

    The other thing to keep in mind before passing any kind of
    judgement on the Chinese government (not to say that I think
    you are) in this regard is that China has a *nasty* overpop-
    ulation problem. If memory serves, they have roughly 1 billion
    people. *Some*thing has to be done.
    
    --- jerry

    RE: 87
    
    Sarah, regarding your comment "...it seemed like the government
    itself was pushing for abortion..". I see it as the government
    pushing for Birth Control
    

    Read in a recent book (How *NOT* To Get Pregnant), where they talk
    about birth control and sterilization techniques, they quoted the
    figures that every year in China 16 million men and women (in nearly
    equal proportions) are sterilized.  I read some time ago (I think
    in Reader's Digest) that they are encouraged to undergo this procedure
    after having their allotted child, and in some cases not only is
    it free, but they receive a "gift" for it (radio?  TV? I don't know)
    
    -Jody
     

    I do agree with the fact that the government is pushing for birth
    control.  But isn't this really an extreme measure?  One of the
    comments made on this show was that INFANTICIDE was increasing quite
    a bit since a lot of the people preferred to have boys, and if they
    had a girl, then they would just kill it off, to try again for a
    boy.  They would do this, instead of being penalized for having
    more than one child.   This was just a comment made.  I do not know
    for sure that this is correct.
    
    Also, I need to make a correction about the note I wrote in .87.
    I did not see this early this year, but around May/June in 1987.
    
    Sarah Tooker
    

    re: .92 --
    
    A historical note -- Infanticide of girl children has been common
    in various parts of China for several hundred years.
    
    --bonnie

re: .93:
    A historical note -- Infanticide of girl children has been common
    in various parts of China for several hundred years.

It's been common in much of the world up until quite recently.

It's also an effective -- long-term -- method of population control.

A somewhat less cruel version -- proposed by a science fiction author
(Heinlein?) would be to sterilize women once they give birth to a
female child (but to permit them to have additional male children).
This, taken to an extreme, is seen in a colony of bees, which have
only one fertile female at a time.

Martin.

    I'd like to clarify my statement (.90) a bit more. It sounded as
    if I were implying abortion is a means of birth control, what I
    meant was I feel the Chinese government is doing their best to
    monitor overpopulation by encouraging contraceptives (i.e., pills,
    condoms, etc.). The local Boston PBS station carried an interesting
    documentary regarding this particular subject last year. The elder
    women in the community visit the various homes and speak with both
    parents and offer support & advice.

    re .91> Idon't know about China, but I do know that in India radios
    have been given as gifts to encourage men to have vasectomies.
    
    Sarah.
    

    re bees
    
    Yes, Martin, except that this ratio of female/male is not what is
    seen in the bee world; furthermore, only one bee female produces
    fertile eggs.  Worker hymenoptera are female; ants, for example,
    lay non-fertile eggs which are used as food.
    
    Well, there are several reasons why I'd rather not pattern my life
    after the social insects.

re: .97:
    
    Well, there are several reasons why I'd rather not pattern my life
    after the social insects.

Enough bugs in your code already, eh Lisa?

    China has been cited by some human-rights groups because pressure
    to abort is so intense that it approaches force. The local female
    party chief will visit the woman and harang with lots of doctrine.
    There was a good article on this last year, in the New York Times
    magazine. I believe the percentage cut in the family income can
    range from 10% to 20% depending on circumstances. In any case, it
    is very substantial.
    
    China does have a serious population problem. And one of the worst
    is that they can't even stabilize the population, even theoretically,
    without disasterous consquences. You see, the next generation has
    to support the current as they age. So you can never cut down too
    sharply, or the whole economy collapses from the top-heavy age
    distribution. Chinas population, according to their Draconian planning,
    will more than double before it peaks out. They are going to have
    serious problems.
    
    re .-?
    
    On another note, I'd like to register my disappointment in the
    hard-core pro-choicers for not understanding where "pro-lifers" are
    coming from. Sure, you can say it's wonderful for someone to say
    that they do not believe in abortion but won't say someone else
    can't have one. But if your understanding is that abortion is killing
    a human life, then there cannot be compromise. How can you condone
    murder? Some people are certain that abortion is in this class,
    and I can respect their view, even though I'm glad they have not
    succeeded in enforcing it. They are not being fascist, nor are they
    being pigheaded. If I tell you that I'm an anarchist, and have a
    god-given right to kill anyone I choose, I strongly suspect you'd
    put me down quick. If I tried to enact legislation making murder
    legal, you'd probably lobby against it.
    
    dov

    Depends upon your definition of murder.  Certain ____-iarchal forms
    of killing people are allowed.   Let's see, only Congress can declare
    war, isn't that how it goes?  

    And you feel free to call war murder, while many people consider
    armed force a patriotic duty and would consider your stand treason.
    I do believe you've just taken _my_ side.
    
    dov

(Hot off the net, folks, from a mailing list I'm on) 
 --------------------------------------------------------------------
February 4, 1988		Message 1532 from Paul Jackson
 
Subject: Canada's abortion law unconstitutional
 
You may well have seen all this in your newspapers but if not I
thought that it would be of interest to readers of this list.
 
	On Jan 28 the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that Canada's
present abortion law (which requires a board of 3 doctors to approve
an abortion) is unconstitutional under Canada's Charter of Rights,
in a 5-2 decision.
 
	To quote some of the judges opinions : (Section 251 is the
section of the Criminal Code being ruled unconstitutional) All of
the following quotes are taken from "The Toronto Star" (without, of
course, permission)
 
'State interference with bodily integrity and serious state-imposed
psychological stress, at least in the criminal law context,
constitutes a breach of security of the person.'
 
'Section 251 clearly interferes with a woman's physical and bodily
integrity.  Forcing a woman by threat of criminal sanction, to carry
a fetus to term unless she meets certain criteria ... is a profound
interference with a woman's body and thus an infringement of
security of the person'
 
				Mr Justice Antonio Lamer
				
'Section 251 ... violates her right to life, liberty and security of
the person ... The right of liberty contained in s.7 guarantees to
every individual a degree of personal autonomy over important
decisions ultimately affecting his or her private life.  Liberty in
a free and democratic society does[n't?] require the state to approve such
decisions but it does require the state to respect them.'
 
'Section 251 ... asserts that the woman's capacity to reproduce is
to be subject, not to her own control, but to that of the state.
This is a direct interference with the woman's physical "person"'
 
				Madam Justice Bertha Wilson
				
	Unfortunately, this is not a complete victory, in that to
some extent the current bill was ruled unconstitutional on technical
grounds, and a new abortion bill may well be passed (although it
will undoubtably be much easier to obtain abortions under the new
bill)
 
	In the interest of completeness, one of the 2 dissenting
opinions is (in part)
 
'Historically, there has always been a clear recognition of a public
interest in the protection of the unborn and there is no evidence of
general acceptance of the concept of abortion at will in our
society. ... The proposition that women enjoy a constitutional right
to have an abortion is devoid of support in either the language,
structure or history of the constitutional text'
 
		Mr Justice William McIntyre
		Mr Justice Gerard La Forest
 
 

    re .101
    
    Only if you agree that certain forms of murder are legal.

Moved by moderator
    
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LDP::BANGMA                                          24 lines  18-FEB-1988 13:03
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    I would like to initiate coversation concerning something I saw
    on the TV program "700 Club" Tuesday night.
    
    It is not a pleasant thing for me.  What about you?  
    
    This is the first time I have ever heard anything like it!!!
    Apparently, scientific experiments are being performed in this
    country as well as others, on 5 month old human fetuses, in
    attempts to find cures and/or help prolong the life of all
    generations.  Mothers are paid ($) to carry a child into its
    second trimester (4 - 6 months along), and allow (how can they?)
    the fetus to be taken either by Ceasarean section or by injection
    (literally plucked piece by piece from the uterus), and medical
    scientists are taking the fetal brain tissues and other fetal organs
    for experimental purposes while the fetus is still alive.
    
    These experiments are said to have been going on in Sweden and
    France since the 1930's and in the U.S. since the 1960's, relative
    to legalization of abortion.
    
    Did anyone else see this program Tuesday? 
    
    Has anyone else ever heard of this before?
    

I would tend to consider the source (700 club), and disregard it as 
another ploy used by anti-abortionists.

Jenna

re: .104:    

    Mothers are paid ($) to carry a child into its
    second trimester (4 - 6 months along), and allow (how can they?)
    the fetus to be taken either by Ceasarean section or by injection
    (literally plucked piece by piece from the uterus), and medical
    scientists are taking the fetal brain tissues and other fetal organs
    for experimental purposes while the fetus is still alive.
    
Fetal remains (from abortions and miscarriages) have been used in
medical experiments.

Payment of donor mothers would be illegal in Sweden and, I suspect,
considered highly unethical by the medical community.

    re: .104
    
    This sounds to me like it might be a garbled version of a recent
    controversy regarding anencephelatic babies -- babies who have a
    birth defect that causes them to be born without a brain.  (This
    whole thing is a bit gross and a bit tough to take, so those of
    you with tender feelings might want to skip the rest of this.  Not
    that avoiding reading about it will stop it from happening.)
        
    Anencephalatic babies develop normally physically, but since they have
    only a brain stem, they can't do more than lie there and breath until
    they die of malnutrition or dehydration (apparently they can't even
    swallow). If put on life support, it just takes them a bit longer to
    die. 
    
    This defect is often detected early enough in the pregnancy for an
    abortion to take place -- certainly a more merciful ending than giving
    birth to a child who is going to die quickly and painfully anyway. 
    
    Last month there was quite a bit of press about a woman who knows she
    is carrying an anencephalatic baby who is going to carry to term and
    give birth so that the baby's organs can be used for transplants to
    other babies.  (From what I read it wasn't clear if this had already
    taken place or if she was only planning to do so.)  Usually
    anencephalatic babies don't provide good organs because the dehydration
    cause the organs to atrophy during the death process, but this baby
    was/is going to be placed on life support to maintain the organs while
    the baby dies. 
    
    This naturally raises a number of ethical issues, not the least
    of which is my phrasing above -- 'babies that don't provide good
    organs' -- how can you refer to 'harvesting organs' the way transplant
    doctors do?  There's a potential for some very nasty stuff here.
    
    In the course of discussion it was revealed that a similar decision had
    been made previously a number of times, including one in Sweden in
    which the medical expenses for maintaining the anencephalatic baby were
    paid by the parents of a baby awaiting a liver transplant.  

    I don't propose to debate the moral or ethical aspects of this whole
    issue; I'm only reporting what I read. 

    --bonnie

    Those reading note .104 in shock should realize that it is a
    confirmation of the base note!!!