Conference yukon::christian_v7

           <<< YUKON::DISK$ARCHIVE:[NOTES$LIBRARY]CHRISTIAN.NOTE;1 >>>
          -<  ...by Believing, you might have Life more abundantly. >-
================================================================================
Note 109.59            The reality of late-term abortions               59 of 73
EVMS::EVMS::WEISS "Trade freedom for security-lose both"  1519 lines  21-JUN-1993 12:16
                  -< The Pro-Life position -  a long version >-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

To start with, I really must congratulate the 'pro-choice' side on the
masterful job they have done of framing the terms of this debate.  They have
managed to frame the question in terms of 'choice,' 'women's rights,' and
'reproductive freedom' in nearly all public forums.  They have steadfastly
refused to leave that field of argument, regardless of how they are provoked;
regardless of how hard pro-life people have tried to change the field of
argument to the question of the life of the unborn.  By doing that so
consistently and so well, the 'pro-choice' side has managed to create the
perception that I mentioned before, that any thinking person is 'pro-choice,'
and the only reasons to be pro-life are based on emotion or religion or some
other reason, such as oppression of women.  This is a magnificent strategy, and
it has been executed very very well.  This strategy is essential to the
preservation of abortion, since it is only on that field of argument that they
can win the debate.  On that field, they have 'choice' and 'rights' and
'freedom' on their side, and can accuse those who disagree with them of being
against those things.

The only problem is, this field of argument is completely wrong.  I contend
that the entire field of argument about choice and rights and freedom is
*irrelevant* to the question of abortion, that the question of the validity of
abortion rests on one question and one question alone: Is the unborn child a
human being?  Any issues of choice or freedom or rights, or any of the other
issues that the 'pro-choice' side typically trumpets, are completely dependent 
on the answer to that one question.

Why do I believe that the issues of choice and rights and freedom - issues that
I believe in passionately - are irrelevant to the resolution of this issue?  In
any debate, both sides must agree on what premises they accept before
proceeding with an intelligent interaction.  If one side of the debate claims a
point as a premise, and the other side disputes the truth of that premise, then
the logical and necessary course of action for the side that claimed the
premise is to back up and establish whether the premise is true.  Intelligent
discourse cannot go forward without doing that, and if the objective of the
debate is to seek the truth, then it is of benefit to both parties, not just
the one questioning the premise, to go back and establish whether the premise
is in fact true.

Suppose Columbus was arguing with people about whether he could reach India by
sailing west.  His premise and assumption in claiming that it was possible was
that the world was round.  If someone argues with him "but the world is flat,
you will fall off the edge," his premise is being challenged.  His only 
intelligent course of action at that point is go back and show why he believes
that the world is in fact round.

Now suppose the side claiming the premise refuses to do that, but instead
continues to present their well-formulated arguments which are based on the
premise - arguments that are true, but only if the premise is true.  In the
meantime, the other side of the debate is still challenging the premise. 
Suppose Columbus didn't address the question of why he believed the world was
round, or just tossed off some derogatory comments belittling anyone who
believed that it was flat, and went on arguing about all the wealth and
benefits they would gain by discovering the shorter routine to India.  What
results from this is that the debate degenerates into a cacophony of noise,
with each side addressing completely different issues.  As a result they are
both totally unable to even understand what the other side is talking about,
and any onlookers to the debate see nothing but pure chaos.

That's precisely what has happened in the abortion debate.  The 'pro-choice'
side takes as a premise that the unborn is not a human being.  The pro-life
side challenges that premise - ***AND ONLY THAT PREMISE***.  We *agree* with
the rest of your position, *IF* this premise is correct.  *IF* the unborn is
not a human being, we can all go home and end this debate right now.  *IF* it's
just a few cells that are part of the mother's body, then abortion becomes the
exact moral equivalent of liposuction.  Though people might snicker up their
sleeves at someone who undergoes liposuction, nobody's going to be out there
blocking liposuction clinics to save the fat cells.  Clearly *IF* this premise
is correct, all the rest of the 'pro-choice' position is correct.  Or at least
we agree that it's not worth debating - it seems true to us too.  *Of course*
it's a women's choice to get rid of some excess cells in her body; *of course*
it is completely her right to do so; *of course* any attempt to stop her from
doing so is impinging on her freedom.

But it's precisely that "IF" that the pro-life side is challenging.  We already
agree that *IF* that premise is true, the rest of your position is true.  Now
if it can also be shown that if that premise is *NOT* true then the rest of the
'pro-choice' position is also not true, then the 'pro-choice' position will
have been shown to rest completely on the premise that the unborn is not a
human being: True if the premise is true, false if the premise is false.  And
once that is proven, we can dismiss the entirety of the 'pro-choice' position
as *irrelevant* to the issue of abortion.  If it all depends completely upon
whether the unborn is a human being, then there's no point in even bringing it
up.  If you can prove that the unborn isn't a human being, your work is done. 
If you can't, then the rest of your position is meaningless.  

           <<< YUKON::DISK$ARCHIVE:[NOTES$LIBRARY]CHRISTIAN.NOTE;1 >>>
          -<  ...by Believing, you might have Life more abundantly. >-
================================================================================
Note 109.59            The reality of late-term abortions               59 of 73
EVMS::EVMS::WEISS "Trade freedom for security-lose both"  1519 lines  21-JUN-1993 12:16
                  -< The Pro-Life position -  a long version >-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Again let's use Columbus as an example, and BTW I deliberately chose an example
where the premise in question was in fact true so that the analogy cannot be
perceived as being chosen to ridicule your position.  Suppose he were to try to
justify his expedition by expounding on the benefits of discovering the trade
route.  This argument is completely irrelevant to the discussion of whether
they should undertake the expedition, because its validity depends entirely on
the truth of the premise that the world is round.  The argument is true if the
premise is true, and false if the premise is false.  It is obvious on the face
of it that if the world is round, then of course he can reach India by sailing
west, and of course he can realize all the benefits of discovering that trade
route.  None of his contemporaries questioned that.  But they questioned his
premise that the world was round.  If that premise was false, if the world is
not round but indeed flat, then there is no trade route to be discovered, they
would in fact fall off the edge of the earth.  

In the face of objections to his premise that the world was round, it would be
absurd for him to even bring up the trade benefits, let alone make them the
total focus of his argument.  The trade benefits don't even exist if his
premise is false.  Any discussion of them is meaningless until the premise is
proven, and should be entirely dismissed from the discussion.  What he must do
is prove his premise.   It's to his own benefit to prove that premise, too.  If
he doesn't, if he keeps the argument in terms of the benefits of the trade
route and manages to cloud the issue enough that he can convince people to go
with him, and the premise turns out to be wrong, the result is that they will
all die when they fall off the edge of the earth.

Precisely the same situation exists for the 'pro-choice' position.  If the
whole thing rests on this one premise, and what you must do is prove that
premise.  If abortion rests on the premise that the unborn is not a human
being, then it is absurd to even bring up 'choice' or 'rights.'  If your
premise is wrong, and you manage by clouding the discussion with these other
issues to convince enough people of your position, then the result is the death
and destruction of millions of human beings every year.

           <<< YUKON::DISK$ARCHIVE:[NOTES$LIBRARY]CHRISTIAN.NOTE;1 >>>
          -<  ...by Believing, you might have Life more abundantly. >-
================================================================================
Note 109.59            The reality of late-term abortions               59 of 73
EVMS::EVMS::WEISS "Trade freedom for security-lose both"  1519 lines  21-JUN-1993 12:16
                  -< The Pro-Life position -  a long version >-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So let's address all the 'pro-choice' arguments, one at a time, and see if
their validity rests on the premise that the unborn is not a person.  Remember,
in these examples, we're making the assumption that the unborn is a human being
to see if the claims of the 'pro-choice' position still hold true *IF* the
unborn is human, so don't go arguing that these points are not true because the
unborn is not a human being.  That's the premise we're challenging, and these
examples are intended to prove that the 'pro-choice' position is only valid
*IF* the unborn is NOT human.

   Is it Murder?
********************************

We hardly even need to go past this one.  As people on the 'pro-choice' side of
this discussion have agreed, every remotely civilized society prohibits murder.
If the unborn is a human being, then killing it is murder, and must be
prohibited unless a clear reason can be shown why the murder is acceptable.
Note that in most societies, including ours, the relative helplessness and/or
innocence of the one being murdered is generally considered to increase the
magnitude of the crime.  For one drug lord to murder another is considered bad,
but there's a sense that the person had it coming, and also that he had some
ability to protect himself.  Murdering children is usually considered a much
worse crime, precisely because the child is relatively innocent and helpless. 
The unborn take innocence and helplessness even a step beyond children.  There
is the fact that the unborn is dependent on support from the mother's body, but
I'll deal with that later.  If the unborn is a human being, at best this fact
could try to show that the murder of the unborn was justifiable; it could not
show that the killing of the unborn was not murder.  

   Choice
********************************
 
If the unborn is a human being, is it valid to speak of the choice or right or
freedom to abort it?  First, let's try to apply this position to other
situations in life.  Does 'choice' apply in *any* other situation where the
'choice' involves the termination of the life of another?

Consider the case of someone who has an affair, and now the person they had the
affair with threatens to make it public.  An instance of this in the press a
few years ago was the case of Wade Boggs (baseball player for the Red Sox) and
Margo Adams.  The parallels to abortion are striking.  The initial cause of the
'problem' in both cases is having sex in an irresponsible fashion (more on
responsibility later).  In both cases, this action results in the existence of
a person who is in a position to *majorly* impact one's life.  In the case of
an unwanted pregnancy, the unborn child is going to grow into a child ready to
be born, who will then need to be either cared for or given up for adoption -
certainly a major disruption of life, with consequences that will be felt for a
lifetime.  The child is going to demand support from the woman's body until it
is born, and support after that if it is not offered up for adoption.  In the
case of Wade Boggs, this person was going to make him front page news as an
adulterer across the nation, probably destroy his marriage and family, deeply
wound him, his wife and his children - again, a major disruption of life, with
consequences that will be felt for a lifetime.  She was also going to demand
support from him, in the form of a palimony suit.

Now in the one case, some people maintain that the woman with the unwanted
pregnancy has the 'choice' to terminate the life of the person that was causing
the disruption.  Yet no one in their right mind would even consider that Wade
Boggs had the right to kill Margo Adams because she was going to disrupt his
life.  *IF* the unborn is a human being, how is there any difference between
these two cases?  How does 'choice' apply, or 'rights' or 'freedom', if the
choice, right, or freedom involves taking the life of another?

Or if you don't think that illustration fits, take the story told in the last
version of Soapbox of the woman who aborted two children so that she would be
able to support the two she already had.  *IF* the unborn is already a human
being, this is no different from killing one of her already-born children so
that she could support the other one.  Would anyone support such a thing, even
in an extreme case like that where the poor woman really had very few options
available?  If some poor woman in the city bears her child and then deposits it
in a dumpster to die because she can't take care of it, the whole city is
outraged, and they hunt down the woman to make her pay for such an unspeakable
crime.  There was a recent case of this, with outrage flowing from everyone. 
Yet if the day before, she had gone to a clinic, and paid a doctor to tear the
child to pieces, people would applaud that as her 'choice.'  How can a thinking
person reconcile these two?  *IF* the unborn is already a human being, the
'choice' to abort is no different than the 'choice' to kill your already-born
children because it's too difficult to take care of them.  We put people away
for years for doing such a thing.

Some of you are probably reacting to "tear the child to pieces," but that is a
precise and literal description of a common late-term abortion process.  Would
you prefer I had said "burn the child to death with a salt/acid solution?" 
That is another common late-term method of abortion.  Let's face facts here -
that is precisely what is actually happening, and the fetus - every bit as
conscious the day before birth as they are the day after - is awake and aware
of what is happening to it, and feels the pain just as you would.  If any of
these things were done to already-born people, the perpetrator would be
perceived as a heinous crimnal and given the death penalty or at least life
imprisonment.  Yet to do the very same things to a done to a conscious, living
late-term fetus is claimed to be a 'right.'

In fact, can anyone come up with **ANY** case where one would be able to speak
of a person's 'choice' to kill another?  I can think of only one defense:
personal self defense.  This could be used to justify abortion in the case
where the mother's life was in real danger, but not for the vast majority of
abortions that are performed.

In short (ha! me, short!) 'choice' has meaning *ONLY* if the unborn is not a
human being.  If the unborn is a human being, the 'choice' to dispose of it is 
totally invalid, and to bring it up is completely irrelevant.

  Women's rights, constitutional right to privacy, right to control
  reproductive destiny, etc.
********************************

All of these concepts are again completely dependent on the unborn not being a
human being.  No one can claim a 'right' to kill another, no one would dream of
claiming a 'right to privacy' as a justification to kill another, and no one
would try to suggest that they should be able to 'control their reproductive
destiny' by killing their children.  If the unborn is a human being, all of
these arguments are meaningless. (Now that really WAS short)

           <<< YUKON::DISK$ARCHIVE:[NOTES$LIBRARY]CHRISTIAN.NOTE;1 >>>
          -<  ...by Believing, you might have Life more abundantly. >-
================================================================================
Note 109.59            The reality of late-term abortions               59 of 73
EVMS::EVMS::WEISS "Trade freedom for security-lose both"  1519 lines  21-JUN-1993 12:16
                  -< The Pro-Life position -  a long version >-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  Back alley abortions
********************************

This is always brought up and much heed is paid to it, even by those who oppose
abortion.  And I understand being swayed by it, because these deaths are 
tragic.  But once again, using this as a reason to support abortion rests
completely on the assumption that the unborn is not a human being.  If the
unborn isn't human, then women are being denied a medical procedure that they
have every right to, and are left with their only option being an unsafe
procedure at the hands of anyone they can find to do the job.  This is truly a
horrible situation.

But if the unborn *is* a human being, then it *should* be dangerous and
difficult to dispose of it.  Suppose I were to desire to kill a recognized
human - an adult - and wanted to hire someone to do the killing for me.  If I
were to then complain how difficult it was to find someone to do it, and how
dangerous it was working with those mob types, and how degraded I felt, would
you consider this a reasonable reason to repeal the laws against killing
another person?  Of course not, your reaction would be "I should hope that it
was dangerous and degrading to have another person killed."

Someone said a while back that he preferred legalized abortion to "the far
worse situation of women dying from back-alley abortions."  Again, this depends
solely on the premise that the unborn is not human.  If the unborn *is* human,
then we are comparing over 1.6 million innocent lives lost annually through no
choice or action of their own, to n(where n is many orders of magnitude less
than 1.6 million) lives lost as a result of trying to take another innocent
person's life.  Even if the number of women dying from "back-alley" abortions
was *equal* to the number of aborted children, if the unborn *is* a human
being, by any civilized standard the loss of innocent life is far worse than
the loss of life in the process of attempted murder.  

But the number of lives lost to "back-alley" abortions is far less than we have
been led to believe.  A recent note postulates "thousands" of deaths a year
from illegal abortions.  I have a magazine article which states that in 1972,
the year prior to Roe v. Wade, ***28*** deaths were reported from illegal
abortions in the U.S.  This figure is not footnoted, I do not know where it
comes from.  But until someone can come up with a strongly documented
counterfigure, I'll stand by that number.  Even I, who am strongly against
abortion, find it hard to believe such a low number.  But I've seen enough of
the mistruth tactics of the 'pro-choice' contingency to believe that the truth
could be that far removed from what we have been led to believe.  Of course,
even if that figure is correct for reported deaths, it is certainly
significantly lower than the truth - there has always been pressure on coroners
to pronounce a different cause of death than a botched abortion.  But we are
talking about a number that is clearly less than 1% of the number of abortions-
would anyone try to claim that 16,000 women a year would die from failed
illegal abortions?  So again, if the unborn *is* a human being, we are talking
about a hundredfold or thousandfold difference in numbers - which of the two is
"far worse?"

Now combine the two.  Which would you consider a worse injustice: 100 children
killed on a playground by a drunk driver who plowed into them, or a drunk
driver killed while just about to drive into a crowded playground?  *IF* the
unborn is a human being, this is precisely what the "back-alley" abortion
argument amounts to.

Many of you are probably thinking how cold and callous I am being, comparing a
woman in a difficult unwanted pregnancy to a drunk driver, and diminishing the
deaths of women who feel they have nowhere else to turn.  But observe that your
reaction is again another emphasis on the fact that you don't believe that the
unborn is a human being.  If what is really happening is that an innocent child
is being killed - regardless of how desperately the woman needs to be rid of 
it - who is being more cold and callous?  The person who is allowing that to
happen out of "compassion" for the woman they can see, or the person who is 
trying to save the life of the child that no but the doctor who aborts it sees?

As an aside, when I posted an absolutely horrific description of a new
late-term abortion procedure, a procedure that is designed specifically to
ensure that the fetus is dead on delivery, the response was remarkably cold and
callous.  Little response was generated at all, and what response there was
just said "we don't support late-term abortions, so we don't even really care
about that."  That attitude of not caring about those late-term abortions once
again shows that there is no recognition that this is a human being.  If it
were a human being that was having a surgical instrument driven into its brain
and having its skull vacuumed out, how could one not object?  Yet these deaths
are just sort of coolly accepted as part of the cost of allowing abortions. 
And the pro-life side is accused of being cold and callous?

As a further aside, there is another point which I believe to be true, but
cannot currently prove.  I will not support this particular point if
challenged, and I would appreciate any supporting materials that anyone may
have.  The 'pro-choice' side makes a big deal about safety, always pointing to
those back-alley abortions.  Yet since the legalization of abortions, there
have been clinics that have performed abortions in unsafe manners, resulting in
injuries or deaths.  I have no numbers, though I don't currently claim they are
large.  As before Roe v. Wade, there is pressure on coroners to pronounce a
cause of death other than a botched abortion, so any actual numbers will be
significantly below the truth, but the fact remains that people are still dying
from unsafe abortions.

When such a case occurs, when a clinic is suspected of performing unsafe
abortions, Planned Parenthood and the rest of the 'pro-choice' side typically
rushes to help defend the clinic and cover up any problems.  I am not aware of
a single case in which Planned Parenthood or any other 'pro-choice' group has
led or even supported an investigation of such a clinic.  Now one would guess,
if these groups really held 'safe abortions' in the high regard that they claim
they do when they are arguing with pro-life people, that they would be the
first people out there demanding an investigation of an unsafe clinic. 
Instead, they seek to defend and cover up any wrongdoing.  This shows that what
they really care about is *available* abortions, and they don't really care
much if they are safe.  Or at least they are not willing to take a stand for
safety if they perceive that it may lose them ground in making sure that
abortions stay available.  That attitude turns the 'dangerous abortion'
argument into the height of hypocrisy - it becomes an argument trotted out to
help their own side and make the other side look bad when it's convenient for
them, though the same issue is completely ignored when it is poses a danger to
the 'more pressing' issue of keeping abortions available.  Though I would never
think to accuse all 'pro-choice' people of this hypocrisy, there are many who
do fall into this category.

           <<< YUKON::DISK$ARCHIVE:[NOTES$LIBRARY]CHRISTIAN.NOTE;1 >>>
          -<  ...by Believing, you might have Life more abundantly. >-
================================================================================
Note 109.59            The reality of late-term abortions               59 of 73
EVMS::EVMS::WEISS "Trade freedom for security-lose both"  1519 lines  21-JUN-1993 12:16
                  -< The Pro-Life position -  a long version >-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  In the best interests of the child: abuse, neglect, deformity of fetus,
  "Every child a wanted child"
********************************

If the child doesn't exist yet, then there is merit to this argument.  The
question of whether a child should be brought into the world into an abusive,
neglected or unwanted situation, or with physical or mental deformities, is
indeed worth asking.  But to propose abortion as a solution to this is to make
the assumption that the child doesn't exist yet - that the unborn isn't a human
being.

If the unborn *is* already a human being, then this is exactly equivalent to
rounding up children (or adults.  Why not?) who are unwanted or who are deemed
by some arbitrary societal standard to have lives that are not worth living,
and killing them.  Once again, this argument is senseless if the unborn is
already a human being.

You occasionally hear people born with deformities say "I wish I had been
aborted," and people point to that and say "See, abortion would have been
better for them."  But there are plenty of people who are perfectly healthy who
desire to commit suicide and wish they had never been born, and plenty of
people with deformities who are glad they had a chance at life, even with their
limitations.  It is not up to us to determine who should live and who should
die.

  Keep the government out.
********************************

There's the compelling argument that outlawing abortion makes the government
intrude into people's lives.  This is absolutely correct; of course outlawing
abortion intrudes into people's lives.  That's what government is *for*. 
Government is there to intrude into the life of anyone who would use force to
impact another person's life.  Government is there to intrude in a robber's
life when he steals your property.  Government is there to intrude in a
rapist's life when he attacks women.  And government is there to intrude in any
person's life when they try to take the life of another.

To impose a negative value judgment on this in the case of abortion, and say
that it is a bad thing that government is intruding in people's lives, is to
assume that there is only one life here that is being intruded upon.  And I
will very much agree, *any* intrusion of government into people's lives when
they were not harming anyone else is completely wrong.  But suppose there are
*two* people involved here, suppose for a moment that the unborn is another
human being.  Then to complain that outlawing abortion is intruding on people's
lives is exactly the same as complaining that the government would intrude on
your life if you 'chose' to kill your spouse.  Once again, this argument is
completely dependent on whether the unborn is a human being.

           <<< YUKON::DISK$ARCHIVE:[NOTES$LIBRARY]CHRISTIAN.NOTE;1 >>>
          -<  ...by Believing, you might have Life more abundantly. >-
================================================================================
Note 109.59            The reality of late-term abortions               59 of 73
EVMS::EVMS::WEISS "Trade freedom for security-lose both"  1519 lines  21-JUN-1993 12:16
                  -< The Pro-Life position -  a long version >-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  Only women are qualified to even discuss the issue.
********************************

Again, if the unborn is not a human being, then no one other than the person
involved has anything to do with it.  And certainly, since men are never in a
position to need an abortion, they can never experientially relate to the
issues involved.  Though they may have input, they can never fully understand,
any more than any other group can understand situations they can never be in.
White people can never fully understand what it's like to be black in the U.S.,
either.

But if the unborn is a human being, then whether I may personally ever be put in
the position of that choice has no bearing on my ability to judge that choice,
nor on the necessity of my becoming involved in the situation.  If I saw a man
beating his child to death, it would never cross my mind to say "Well, I don't
have children, so I'm in no position to judge his choice to beat his child."  I
would simply intervene, and so would anyone else.  The choice to take the life
of another human being can and must be judged to be a wrong choice by *ANYONE*,
regardless of what choices they may or may not have been faced with themselves.

  It's heartless to condemn people who aren't prepared to support a child to
  celibacy.
********************************

Heartless?  Heartless?  It's heartless to say people should not be creating
human beings if they plan to kill them?  As in all the above cases, the very
idea that this could be considered 'heartless' is absolutely dependent on the
fundamental assumption that the unborn is not a human being.  If it's just a
blob of cells, then yes, it's heartless to tell people to remain celibate to
avoid harming the blob of cells.  But observe what this argument degenerates
into if the unborn *IS* a human being.  You are then claiming that people should
have the freedom to have sex whenever and with whoever they desire, despite the
fact that this freedom will directly cause the deaths of many innocent people. 
Why shouldn't I have the "freedom" to drink and drive?  Isn't it 'heartless' to
condemn a poor alcoholic to not be able to drive?  So what that innocent people
will be killed, it's his 'right' to drive.  His very ability to live in our
society will be severely impacted by not being allowed to drive.

What is heartless is accepting the deaths of innocent human beings as a
reasonable cost of sexual license.  And if the unborn is a human being, that's
exactly what is being advocating.

  Would you really impose criminal penalties on people who performed abortions
  or on people who had them?
********************************

Let's rephrase this question, assuming that the unborn is a human being.  Would
you impose criminal penalties on someone who killed another person, or on
someone who paid to have another person killed?  Even asking this question in
the first place makes the assumption that the unborn is not human.  Of course
someone who performs illegal abortions - who kills unborn people - should be
subject to criminal penalties.  Since it is a common natural occurence for
unborn children to die from natural causes, any attempt to investigate a mother
for the death of an unborn child should be subject to extreme safeguards to
prevent wrongful harassment.  But would you prosecute a poor young mother who
killed her post-born offspring because she could not take care of it?  If the
pre-born is also a human being, it is exactly the same situation.

           <<< YUKON::DISK$ARCHIVE:[NOTES$LIBRARY]CHRISTIAN.NOTE;1 >>>
          -<  ...by Believing, you might have Life more abundantly. >-
================================================================================
Note 109.59            The reality of late-term abortions               59 of 73
EVMS::EVMS::WEISS "Trade freedom for security-lose both"  1519 lines  21-JUN-1993 12:16
                  -< The Pro-Life position -  a long version >-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

EVERY SINGLE ONE of these arguments depends completely on the premise that the
unborn is just a part of the mother's body, and is not an individual human
being.  Every one of these arguments is completely true if the unborn is not a
human being, and completely false if the unborn is a human being.  Therefore
they are all *irrelevant* to the discussion of abortion.  The rightness of
abortion rests solely upon the question of whether the unborn is a human being,
and all of these other arguments are just detractions from the addressing of
the real issue.

Now, one would think that if the 'pro-choice' side could win their whole case
so easily by proving this one premise, that they would leap to do so.  Yet they
never do - they avoid this question as much as possible.  No matter how much
pro-life people try to get them to address whether the unborn is a person,
'pro-choice' folks will nearly always return immediately to 'choice,' 'rights,'
'back-alley abortions,' etc.  On the rare occasions that they will address the
humanity of the unborn at all, it is usually a derogatory belittling of the
very idea.  Only very rarely will anyone on the 'pro-choice' side actually
address whether the unborn is a human being.  Why is that?

I believe the reason is simple.  They can't prove that premise, and what's
more, on some level, whether conscious or unconscious, the leaders of this
movement **KNOW** that they can't prove that premise.  They can't ever afford
to let the debate shift to the ground of whether the unborn is a human being,
because any reasonable scientific examination will show that it *is* a human
being.  They *must* keep the debate on the issues of 'choice' and 'reproductive
freedom' and 'back-alley abortions,' or they will lose, and they know that. I'm
not saying that everyone who is 'pro-choice' knows this.  But I do believe that
among those who are directing this movement, this is well known, and that the
strategy being used is quite intentional.

If the 'pro-choice' side were really interested in the truth of the matter,
they would address this issue head on, and make it the focus of their platform. 
They don't; they rarely address it directly, just making off-hand derogatory
descriptions of the unborn as being "just like a toenail," or occasionally
saying something about viability, or "how come a pancreas isn't a person, it's
human and it's alive."  Instead, the whole platform is based on 'choice.'  

How can we categorize this insistence on focusing on an issue that is
demonstrably irrelevant to the question at hand?  My DEC standard American
Heritage Dictionary (limited and lacking in depth though it is, Greg :-) 
contains a word which it defines as: 1) "The systematic propagation of a given
doctrine." 2) "Ideas, information or other material disseminated to win people
over to a given doctrine."  The basic idea being conveyed by this word is that
it is something designed to win people to a position, not to engage in true
debate or a search for truth.  This word is 'propaganda.'  My personal working
definition of 'propaganda' is *any* line of argument, whether for a true cause
or a false cause, which does not aim to seek the truth, but only aims to
convince people of your own position.

There are examples of propaganda within the pro-life movement too.  I've seen a
little "diary of a fetus," where the unborn is thinking things like "I can't
wait to see what my mommy looks like," and ends with "Today, my mommy killed
me."  That is pure propaganda.  It does not seek to discover truth, no one
would suggest that a fetus really thinks at that level.  It seeks only to
emotionalize and convince people of a position.  Repeated crying of 'murder' to
people who don't understand what they are doing may also fall into this
category, although it is still trying to address the fact that the unborn is a
human being.  

Many tactics of the pro-life movement that are labeled 'propaganda' and
'sensationalism' by the 'pro-choice' side are *not* propaganda, however.  For
example showing people what a 12-week fetus looks like, through pictures or the
real thing, while it may be considered sensational, is seeking to make people
understand the truth that this is a person, not a bunch of cells.  It is
addressing the real issue.  Actually, it's not sensational at all, it is just
that reality seems sensational to those who would deny it.  People might be
grossed out, but would anybody be moved, or would anyone expect anyone else to
be moved, to ban liposuction by viewing a jar of fat cells?

In contrast the ***ENTIRE*** 'pro-choice' position, with the sole exception of
the few off-hand comments about the unborn being a "toenail" or occasional
arguments about viability, is ***PURE PROPAGANDA***.  And even those comments
that do address the humanity of the unborn usually don't really address the
issue, they just seek to trivialize it, in another effort to keep the whole
discussion centered around 'choice.'  Occasionally someone will address it
slightly - I'll concede that in the very last reply of our "discussion" a while
back, Greg actually had a couple of interesting facts.  But even those facts
were nearly hidden in the overriding need for derogatory belittling of the very
idea that the unborn might be a person.  In the vast majority of the
'pro-choice' position, there is no effort to seek truth, because it all rests
on a premise which is being challenged.  Until and unless you prove that
premise which is being challenged, everything else you are saying is smoke and
noise, which if it is not intentionally designed to skirt any real
investigation of the truth, is having exactly that effect.

                          <<< YUKON::DISK$ARCHIVE:[NOTES$LIBRARY]CHRISTIAN.NOTE;1 >>>
          -<  ...by Believing, you might have Life more abundantly. >-
================================================================================
Note 109.59            The reality of late-term abortions               59 of 73
EVMS::EVMS::WEISS "Trade freedom for security-lose both"  1519 lines  21-JUN-1993 12:16
                  -< The Pro-Life position -  a long version >-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


So.  Is the unborn a human being?

Whatever it is, it's clearly human.  That much is not really up for argument
and has been conceded by the 'pro-choice' side.  It is definitely a human
something.  And as has also been conceded, it is living tissue, so it is
definitely alive.  But as has been noted, so is a pancreas a living human
pancreas.  Is there anything that makes a unborn different from another body
part?

Yes, very much so, on two counts.  First, it is a ***UNIQUE** human entity.  It
is not a part of the mother's body, though it resides in the mother's body.  It
has its own unique DNA sequence.  Most of its physical characteristics are
determined at conception: sex, basic height, skin color, eye color, facial
shape, even things down to the sound of their voice.  In addition, many
behavioral characteristics are already determined.  Some basic likes, dislikes,
and ways of reacting are determined genetically.  Ask any parent who has had
more than one child - the way they act is different from birth and before. 
Studies of identical twins separated at birth have confirmed this.  It is an
entirely separate entity - and a human entity - which at the moment resides
within the mother's body.

It is not only a unique human entity, it is a ***COMPLETE*** human entity. 
Making a comparison with a pancreas or a toenail is foolish - these are only
parts of a human body.  The unborn, from conception, is entire and complete in
and of itself; it is a fully separate and whole entity.  It is not a part of
anything else, nor does it need any other pieces to become complete.  It does
need a nourishing environment, just as all humans do, it is simply that the
nature of the environment that it requires is different from what adults
require.  The completeness of this entity also makes the comparisons which some
people make with eggs and sperm foolish.  Eggs and sperm are no more a complete
human entity than is a toenail.  They are separate and unique, but they are not
complete.  They do not have a complete human DNA sequence, and even given the
best possible conditions, neither eggs nor sperm alone will develop into
anything beyond what they are, and will die in a few days.

This separate, unique, and complete entity will grow in a single unbroken
continuum through the stages of zygote, blastocyst, embryo, fetus, infant,
child, adolescent, and adult up to the time of its death.  It makes no
difference to a discussion of developing embryos or fetuses, or of their rights
as humans, that many fertilized eggs do not implant or are miscarried almost
immediately.  When speaking of abortion we are speaking of terminating an
existing, flourishing life.  It would make equal sense to attempt to use the
fact that most people die before the age of 75 as a factor in determining the
humanity and rights of a 75 year old.

It also makes no difference that many parts of the body are not yet formed at
early stages, or that brain function is nonexistent at the beginning and
minimal for a while after that, any more than an infant can be declared
non-human because it hasn't yet developed teeth or hair, or because it knows
and understands almost nothing yet.  To describe a human as an embryo is no
different than describing a human as an infant or an adult - it simply
describes a state of development.  At no point along this continuum is there
any sudden or dramatic fundamental change in the life itself - it is a constant
process of growth that will continue until interrupted by accident, disease,
age or deliberate termination.  However, the 'pro-choice' side attempts to draw
several dividing lines, prior to which this entity is not classed as a human 
being, and prior to which it has no rights and no status which must be
considered.  Let's deal with each of these dividing lines in turn, starting
from the oldest and working backwards.

           <<< YUKON::DISK$ARCHIVE:[NOTES$LIBRARY]CHRISTIAN.NOTE;1 >>>
          -<  ...by Believing, you might have Life more abundantly. >-
================================================================================
Note 109.59            The reality of late-term abortions               59 of 73
EVMS::EVMS::WEISS "Trade freedom for security-lose both"  1519 lines  21-JUN-1993 12:16
                  -< The Pro-Life position -  a long version >-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The first line that is attempted is birth.  This is the most sudden and
dramatic change that exists in the life of a person, yet the person themself
does not change significantly.  Their environment changes, quite drastically. 
Because of that environmental change, the manner in which the child obtains
nourishment and processes metabolic waste changes.  Prior to birth, the person
obtained oxygen and nourishment through the placenta and the mother's
bloodstream.  It gets rid of carbon dioxide and other metabolic wastes in the
same way, though the baby's kidneys have been functioning for quite a while
prior to birth, doing some amount of processing of metabolic wastes and
urinating into the amniotic sac.  At the moment of birth, the lungs, though
fully developed and capable of breathing before birth, are suddenly put to use
to provide oxygen and dispose of carbon dioxide.   That is the only part of the
baby's system that changes at the moment of birth.  The digestive tract will
begin to be used shortly, but is not used immediately after birth.  

Most people, including many 'pro-choice' people, reject this definition of when
a 'right to life' begins.  To see a living, born child and defend that the day
before, when the child was still in their mother's womb, they could be
legitimately killed for any reason, is simply too much of a stretch for most
people to accept.  It's clear that consciousness existed the day before, that
the capacity to feel pain existed the day before, that the capacity to feel
fear existed the day before.  Scientific studies have shown that children learn
while still in the womb: newborn babies recognize their mother's voice, and
also the voices of the father or other people who spoke frequently while the
baby was still inside the mother.  To suggest that a woman may kill a child
simply because the child resides within her, is equivalent to suggesting that
adults have the right to shoot and kill any visitors to their house with no
provocation on the ground that the visitors have no right to their own life
when they are on the host's property.

Yet the people in the center of the 'pro-choice' political machine continually
and consistently push for the 'right' to abort up to the day of birth, even
though a very clear majority of people disagree with this, and quite probably a
majority even of those who are on their own side.  Why is this?  I think it is
because they know that it is the only point at which they can hope to hold the
line.  There are no dramatic events between there and conception.  Once they
acknowledge that the mother does not have the absolute right to kill the child
simply because it is within her body, they will have conceded the whole
'rights' and 'choice' position which is essential to preserving abortion.  If
once they allow the field of debate to shift to when the child should have its
own rights, at a point prior to birth, rational examination will soon eliminate
all abortions.

This again is backward reasoning.  There is no attempt in this extreme
'pro-choice' position to seek the truth of whether late-term abortions are
legitimate or not.  There is such an insistence on maintaining the availability
of abortion, that late-term  abortions are simply considered part of the cost
of maintaining that availability, and the question is never even EXAMINED as to
whether they are in fact painful murders of living human beings.  And pro-life
people are accused of being cold and callous?!?!?!

In addition, a significant element of the procedure for most late-term abortion
methods is some way to ensure the death of the fetus, and nearly all of these
methods are tortuous to the fetus.  Saline and urea abortions burn and poison
the child to death before labor is induced.  Dilation and Evacuation leaves no
chance that a child might be born alive, as it is dismembered and removed from
the womb in pieces.  In the new Dilation and Extraction method, the abortionist
deliberately drives a surgical instrument into the fetus's skull and vacuums
out its brain when it is almost fully delivered.  Hysterotomy (Caesarean
section) is rarely used for very late term abortions, largely because the child
is often born alive.  The "spontaneous death" of some fetuses which have been
aborted by hysterotomy at a gestation which is normally fully viable raises
questions of how 'spontaneous' the death was.  Cases have been documented of
aborted babies surviving for hours unattended before finally dying.  These
cases are hard to document because the people involved will not divulge them,
but they do happen.

How can these possibly be justified?  First, even if the mother did have the
'right' to cease supporting the fetus at this stage, how can we possibly
justify her 'right' to torture the child to death?  EVERY late-term abortion
method is extremely painful for the fetus, some more, some less.  The Dilation
and Extraction method, while the most grisly because the abortionist actually
holds the living, squirming child in his hands before pithing it like a
laboratory frog, is actually the most 'humane.'  Certainly more humane than
tearing it apart or burning it with acid.

Second, again even if the mother does have the 'right' to cease supporting the
fetus, why abortion rather than induction?  Late-term abortion methods are not
significantly safer or easier on the mother than labor or Caesarean section.
For fetuses older than 7 months or so, if the mother's 'choice' is based on her
'right' to control her body, then she could exercise that right by inducing
labor or by having a Caesarean section.  She would retain full control of her
body, and the fetus would retain its right to its own life.  To maintain that
the mother has the right to abort at these gestations, rather than the right to
induce labor, is simply to maintain that the mother has the right to kill her
child up until the time it is born.  The 'choice' and 'rights' arguments hold
even less meaning at this point than they do at earlier gestations, since a
woman is perfectly capable of exercising that 'choice' and those 'rights' to
control her own body without harming the fetus.  To maintain that she can still
abort, is simply to grant her the 'right to kill,' and there can be no such
right.

           <<< YUKON::DISK$ARCHIVE:[NOTES$LIBRARY]CHRISTIAN.NOTE;1 >>>
          -<  ...by Believing, you might have Life more abundantly. >-
================================================================================
Note 109.59            The reality of late-term abortions               59 of 73
EVMS::EVMS::WEISS "Trade freedom for security-lose both"  1519 lines  21-JUN-1993 12:16
                  -< The Pro-Life position -  a long version >-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The next point at which a line is attempted to be drawn is 'viability'.  My AHD
defines 'viable' as: "capable of living or developing under normal or favorable
conditions."  Clearly the unborn are all then 'viable' by this definition at
all stages of development, since normal or favorable conditions do not include
forcible removal from the womb where they are growing.  But 'viable' when used
here is usually taken to mean that the fetus has developed to the point where
it can survive without the support of the mother.

So what would be a reasonable age to term a child 'viable?'  18 years old,
perhaps?  Maybe only 12?  A newborn child is *entirely* dependent on adult
humans for its survival.  It will be weeks before the child can even roll over
by itself, let alone provide itself with food, warmth, or shelter.  Without
direct intervention and providing of needs by adults, the child will die.  The
process of growth from zygote to adult is a constant process of growing more
capable and more independent.  True self-dependency without adult support is
not achieved until a point many years after birth.  By the definition that is
used in the abortion debate, the **only** thing that a 'viable' child can get
by themself is oxygen.  What is so miraculous about the ability of our lungs to
process oxygen?  Why is it that if we can process oxygen, we deserve to live,
but if we can't we don't deserve to live?  Is a person on a respirator not
'viable?'  Can their life be terminated?  

Can't anyone else see the utter hypocrisy in the recent case of the newborn
baby bludgeoned to death and left in the dumpster, where they were trying to
determine if the baby had taken a breath yet?  If the baby had taken a breath,
then they could charge the woman with murder, if it had not, they could only
charge her with unlawful disposal of medical waste.  This is a baby that was
clearly fully capable of taking a breath, but until it had, it was just
considered "medical waste."  How can anyone possibly believe that the act of
taking a breath is what makes us human and grants us human rights?  

There is also the fact that the point of 'viability' keeps changing as
technology changes.  I don't know the exact week numbers, but babies are
surviving at much earlier birth ages than they used to - babies under 2 pounds
have survived.  It is technologically feasible that eventually a fertilized egg
could be incubated completely outside a human body.  How is 'viable' defined
then?

What's really even worse is the underlying premise that the ability to take
care of oneself is a prerequisite for having the right to live.  The basis of
the assumption that a pre-'viable' fetus may be aborted is that until the fetus
can survive on its own, it is not fully human and has no right to life.  We
base this on the ability to process oxygen, nothing more.  If we can define
life in this manner, why can't we define it in terms of the ability to obtain
other necessities?  If it's valid to say "If you can't breathe for yourself,
you don't have a right to live," why can't we say "If you can't feed yourself,
you don't have a right to live?"  Or ultimately, "If you can't provide for all
your needs yourself, you don't have a right to live."  What happens if people
start to apply this premise to other people who cannot take care of themselves? 
Are all children not 'viable' and vulnerable to extermination because they
cannot provide for their own needs?  The elderly? The handicapped?  The weak or
injured?  Do we really want to make the right to life contingent on the ability
to provide for oneself?

For those who pooh-pooh this progression, it's worth noting that this is
exactly how it started in Nazi Germany.  Acceptance of abortion was the first
step in dehumanizing the weak and anyone who could not take care of themselves,
which eventually culminated in the dehumanizing of adults who were 'unwanted'
by the rest of the populace, and their extermination.  It is also worth noting
that, probably due to their recent experience with the results of
dehumanization, Germany is one of the only countries in the European community 
to outlaw abortion for almost all reasons.  Poland, which also had direct
contact with the Nazi dehumanization, is another that outlaws abortion.  What
is it that they know that the other European countries don't?  What can we
learn from them?

There is also the fact to be dealt with that even prior to the point that is
currently declared as 'viable,' there is some level of consciousness in the
fetus.  The fetus can move, kick, drink, suck its thumb.  It responds to light. 
It may be able to feel pain, and it may be able to feel fear.  Before the
current point of 'viability,' we are talking about a conscious human being. 
The consciousness may be more limited than that of an infant, but the
consciousness of an infant is more limited than an adult, and we would never
try to defend that we can kill infants because their consciousness is not as
advanced as that of adults.  We are most certainly *NOT* talking about
something that is just a few cells, or is "just like a toenail," which is how
the 'pro-choice' side tries to justify abortion before 'viability.'

There is also the argument that the child is not to be considered a separate
human being as long as it is physically dependent on the mother's body.  I'll
deal with that issue in a later section on responsibility.

           <<< YUKON::DISK$ARCHIVE:[NOTES$LIBRARY]CHRISTIAN.NOTE;1 >>>
          -<  ...by Believing, you might have Life more abundantly. >-
================================================================================
Note 109.59            The reality of late-term abortions               59 of 73
EVMS::EVMS::WEISS "Trade freedom for security-lose both"  1519 lines  21-JUN-1993 12:16
                  -< The Pro-Life position -  a long version >-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The last line that people try to draw is that once brain function starts,
*then* it is a person.  This is not at all a good point to choose to support
abortions, since current technology has detected brain function at 40 days, and
the majority of abortions are performed after that date.  People who put forth
that argument as a support of abortion are arguing against themselves - if the
argument were accepted, it would eliminate almost all abortions.

But medically, lack of measurable brain function is not sufficient cause to
proclaim that a person is not alive.  The actual definition is lack of
measurable brain function, with no expectation that brain function will occur
at any time in the future.  Doctors have discovered that in some cases, for
example cases of hypothermia (extreme cold), a person may have no measurable
brain function or bodily function at all, yet may still be revived with no
adverse effects, not even any brain damage.  The doctor's rule of thumb with
hypothermia is "they're not dead until they're *warm* and dead."  A doctor will
not declare a person in this condition dead, *even with ***NO*** brain function
at all that can be detected by any current means*, until they have reached a
point where the doctor is convinced that brain function will never occur.

Applying the same medical rules to the unborn that we would apply to an adult,
we must conclude that the embryo is alive even *before* brain function begins. 
There may be no measurable brain function at 20 days, but we *know* that brain
function *will* occur.  The embryo can no more be declared not alive because we
can't measure its brain function at the moment than a hypothermia victim can be
declared not alive.

Yes, at this stage the embryo is closer to the 'bunch of cells' that
'pro-choice' folks describe all the unborn as being, though the heart is
usually beating by the time a woman even gets a positive pregnancy test.  But
trying to say that before brain function begins they may be aborted makes the
assumption that if they're not conscious, if they don't know they're being
killed, then it somehow becomes OK.  Would it then be OK to kill someone while
they were sleeping, or in a coma, because they wouldn't know about it?  You say
that sleep or a coma is only temporary?  Well, so is the condition of the child
before brain function begins.  If time is allowed to pass, brain function
*WILL* occur.

There is no reasonable point after the merging of sperm and egg to declare that
life begins.  At the point of conception, an individual, unique, complete and
separate human being is created.  It will grow in an unbroken progression with
no sudden and dramatic changes in the entity itself from conception to death of
old age, if not interrupted by disease, accident, or intentional termination.
That human being will be limited in capacity and in independence for a long
time.  It will be completely dependent on its mother for survival for several
months.  It will be completely dependent on adults for survival for many years
after that.  It will realize the full potential of its humanity by degrees,
slowly, over decades.  But any rational examination must declare that it is
fully human over that entire continuum, from beginning to end.

           <<< YUKON::DISK$ARCHIVE:[NOTES$LIBRARY]CHRISTIAN.NOTE;1 >>>
          -<  ...by Believing, you might have Life more abundantly. >-
================================================================================
Note 109.59            The reality of late-term abortions               59 of 73
EVMS::EVMS::WEISS "Trade freedom for security-lose both"  1519 lines  21-JUN-1993 12:16
                  -< The Pro-Life position -  a long version >-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  Responsibility
********************************

OK, so let's talk about responsibility.  There's a persistent repetition that
the pro-life side wants to prevent people from taking responsibility for their
own lives and actions.  Precisely the opposite is true.  We want to prevent
people from *shirking* responsibility for their own lives and actions, by the
method of terminating the life another human being whose presence is the direct
result of their actions.  There's this assertion that pro-life people are
trying to take away the 'reproductive freedom' of women, and forbid their
'choice.'  Not at all.  Women have complete 'choice' over their 'reproductive
destiny.'  It's just that by the time conception has occurred, that choice has
already been made, and that destiny already determined.  

I've seen a supposed comparison to the abortion issue where someone asks this
question:  Suppose someone kidnaps you and hooks you up to some sort of
dialysis machine connected to another person.  You are then faced with this
choice:  You must remain connected to the machine for 9 months, or the other
person will die.  Do you have an obligation to stay connected to the machine,
knowing that to choose to break the connection results in the person's death?
In response, I would say: No, given the scenario that you portray, I don't
think that the person has an ethical obligation to remain connected to the
machine (though they may feel a personal moral obligation).  However, my point
of disagreement is with your analogy.  Pregnancy does not generally occur by
violence and "kidnaping" against the mother's will.  Pregnancy generally occurs
with her consent.  Now suppose that you entered a contract, one of the possible
stipulations of which was that you be connected to this machine.  The person
who would die as the result of your disconnecting would not be put in that
position in the first place except as a result of your entering into the
contract.  *NOW* do you have an obligation to remain attached to the machine? 
And my answer is, you most certainly do.

Having sex causes babies.  Always has.  Always will.  Whether you take
precautions against it or not, unless one of the participants is sterile,
pregnancy is a possible consequence of every act of sex.   Procreation is a
difficult area for ethics in general, since there is nothing to directly
compare it to - there is no other act which *creates* life.  However, civilized
societies, including ours, have long answered the question "Does a parent have
an obligation to support the child they have brought into the world," with a
resounding affirmative.  There are laws against child neglect in this country,
and there should be.  The recent uproar over the baby found in the dumpster
would probably have been even greater had the mother not violently killed the
child but had simply refused to care for it, allowing it to die a lingering
death from exposure.  Everyone in our society would condemn her for not
fulfilling her obligation to care for the child she has conceived and borne, at
least so far as to put it up for adoption and let someone else care for it.  At
the moment after the birth, assuming that the woman was alone, she was the only
person who could care for the child (no one else was there to do it), so it is
analogous to the situation where the child is still in the womb and only the
mother can support the child.  Yet *Everyone* would insist that she had an
absolute obligation to care for that child and keep it alive, to the best of
her ability, until such time as she could pass that obligation on to someone
else.

To claim that a woman has no such obligation to a conceived child, is yet one
more time a claim that the unborn is not yet a human being, since if it is a
human being the mother clearly has an obligation to support it until such time
as she can pass that obligation on to someone else.  The 'pro-choice' side
claims that women should be able to assert their "choice," their "reproductive
rights," and their "reproductive freedom to choose not to be a parent" *after*
a child is conceived.  

Thank you to Fred Haddock for the perspective that the arguments that the woman
should be able to make this 'choice' because it is her body are really
something of a smokescreen.  The vast majority of the reasons given for having
an abortion have nothing to do with the impact on the woman's body, they have
to do with not wanting the responsibility of the child - not having the money,
not being mature enough, not being in a position to raise a child, etc. 
Chelsea claims that "it's my body" is not the reason for the decision, but just
the justification to make the decision.  Compare it to this:  In general, you
have the right to do whatever you want with your own home.  You get to say who
can come in and who can't, you get to control everything that happens there,
because "it's your house."  There are a few exceptions to this, but they
generally regulate the effect you have on other people's houses - you can't
dump raw sewage into your back yard so it flows into your neighbor's yard. 
This is equivalant to regulations on your body that you may not use your body
to harm others.

Now suppose your home is way up in the mountains of Montana - 30 miles from the
nearest other house.  You tell some friends of yours they can "stop in any
time."  Not a specific invitation, but a general one.  One that you thought
they wouldn't really take you up on.  One winter's day, a taxi drops them off
at your door.  A blizzard is approaching, and you know Montana blizzards are
fierce, the temperature is supposed to be below zero and the blizzard will last
for days.  Do you have the right to claim "it's my house" and throw them out,
knowing that they will surely die?  Under normal circumstances, certainly you
would be justified in claiming "it's my house" and not allowing them to stay. 
But you have invited them there, though you really didn't want them to come and
hoped they wouldn't.  And you know that give the current circumstances they are
entirely dependent for their survival on your house - they will surely die if
you throw them out.  Do you have the right to claim control over your house and
throw them out to their death, or do you have an obligation to them, having
invited them to your home, to take them in at least until the blizzard is over
and you can escort them to safety elsewhere?  Carrying the abortion analogy
further, do you have the right to actively kill them in the process of evicting
them from your house?  And carrying it to late-term abortions, do you have the
right to torture them to death and they toss their bodies out of the house?

           <<< YUKON::DISK$ARCHIVE:[NOTES$LIBRARY]CHRISTIAN.NOTE;1 >>>
          -<  ...by Believing, you might have Life more abundantly. >-
================================================================================
Note 109.59            The reality of late-term abortions               59 of 73
EVMS::EVMS::WEISS "Trade freedom for security-lose both"  1519 lines  21-JUN-1993 12:16
                  -< The Pro-Life position -  a long version >-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The "it's my body" argument is used as the basis, but the reasons that are used
are reasons which are held up with great seriousness and compassion for women -
not ready to have a child, can't afford it, would totally disrupt her life's
plans and possible education, etc.  To see the total bankruptcy of this
position from the perspective of responsibility, note what would happen if men
tried to say the same thing.  Men don't have the short-term dependency on their
bodies that women do, but they *do* have the long-term responsibilities on them
for support that are the overriding reason that most women have abortions.  Men
in fact *do* run away from these responsibilities all the time - men are
constantly conceiving children and then refusing to support them.  But they
never try to claim that it is right for them to ditch their responsibilities,
and their actions are recognized and condemned as being irresponsible and
wrong.  Suppose a man were to say to a woman with whom he has conceived a
child, from the stance of moral superiority: "Well, I don't choose to have a
child right now, and to compel me to have anything to do with the child that I
conceived would violate my reproductive rights, and the freedom to choose my
own reproductive destiny." People would laugh in his face for the absurdity of
suggesting that he had no responsibility to the child he had conceived.  Yet
when a woman says *precisely* the same thing, everyone applauds and nods their
head in assent.  What an incredible double standard!

The law would laugh in his face, too.  He can be legally compelled, through a
paternity suit, to pay support for the child he has helped conceive.  Though I
would not minimize the incredibly difficulty of being a single parent nor try
to portray that it is not much more difficult than paying child support, let's
not minimize the hardship of paying child support either.  Child support
payments are (and should be) very high, *majorly* impact a man's life for
almost 20 years, and *majorly* limit his choices.  His 'choice' or 'rights' are
never considered in determining child support.  Whether he wanted the child,
whether he can afford to support it, whether paying that support will destroy
his ability to get an education or any other dreams of his life, whether *his*
'choice' would have been abortion or adoption, are irrelevant: legally, he must
pay until the child is an adult.  This is sex discrimination at its most
blatant.  The very existence of paternity suits asserts that *the sex act
alone* creates a man's obligation to the child that may be thus conceived.  Why
doesn't a woman have the same obligation from the same act?  If a woman can
still claim the "Right to choose" not to be a parent *after* conception, why
can't a man?  What about *his* "Right to choose his reproductive destiny?"

If it sounds ludicrous to suggest that a man should be able to justifiably walk
away from a child he's conceived, that's the point.  If a man takes off and
shirks his responsibility to the life he has created, you'd think he's a real
dirtbag.  Yet if a woman does precisely the same thing it is championed as her
'right' and her 'choice.'  It hardly seems just or fair to maintain that one
act of sex may oblige a man to support the life conceived by that act for 18
years, while simultaneously insisting that the very same act does not require 9
months of support from a woman.  Yet that is precisely what the law in this
country says today.  

Which act creates the responsibility?  If it is the act of  conception that
creates the life and creates the responsibility to that life -  which is
claimed by a paternity suit, since it's the only act the man has  participated
in - then *BOTH* participants to that act should be responsible to the created
life.  The nature of the woman's responsibility for the first nine months is
different than a man's, but that is just the way nature works.  Whether  a
responsibility is created to the conceived life at the time of conception
should be the same for both of them.  If the life and the responsibility to it
is created by the choice not to  abort, then how can the man be held
responsible for that life?  It's a general  principle of law that you cannot be
held responsible for something over which  you have no control.  If the
conception which he *did* have control over did not create any responsibility -
and the 'right' for the woman to 'choose' abortion claims that it did not -
then his participation is OVER.  If it's the choice not to abort that creates
the responsibility - a choice over which he has no control, then he cannot be
made to bear the responsibility for that choice.  If it's the woman's 'choice,'
and her's alone, as is claimed by the 'pro-choice' side, then the 
responsibility is also hers and hers alone.  You can't have it both ways.

To see it more clearly, note what happens *after* birth.  At the moment of 
birth, the difference in responsibilities between the man and the woman who
conceived the child ends.  At that time, the child is no longer dependent on
the mother's body, and both parents share - or should share - completely equal
responsibility.  Yet still at that point, it is the woman's 'choice.'  If she
desires, she can give the child up for adoption and pass on the responsibility
to someone else.  Or, she can choose to keep the child, and if she does, she
can legally force the father to support it.  Now *THAT* is a double standard
without even a glimmer of reason behind it.

You who label yourself 'pro-choice:' If you want to stand for *human* rights,
not just *women's* rights, then you need to take an equally strong stance
against paternity suits.  If instead you think that a man should be responsible
for the life he has conceived, then perhaps your thoughts about abortion have
been twisted by all the 'pro-choice' propaganda that has been disseminated?

BTW, I am completely aware that though the law *says* it can compel men to take
responsibility for the children they have conceived, the enforcement of this
law is severely lacking.  Women are often being left high and dry without
support by men who conceived children with them.  I deplore men's shirking of
their responsibilities just as much as I do women's.  I would support a number
of laws aimed at requiring men to support the children they've conceived,
including attachment of wages.  Here's a thought: what if, for the last 20
years, instead of fighting to be just as irresponsible as men in the area of
procreation, women had fought to force men to be as responsible as women have
always had to be?  What if all the time, effort, and money that has gone into
supporting abortion had gone into getting men to take responsibility for the
children they conceived?  What a better world this would be to live in.

           <<< YUKON::DISK$ARCHIVE:[NOTES$LIBRARY]CHRISTIAN.NOTE;1 >>>
          -<  ...by Believing, you might have Life more abundantly. >-
================================================================================
Note 109.59            The reality of late-term abortions               59 of 73
EVMS::EVMS::WEISS "Trade freedom for security-lose both"  1519 lines  21-JUN-1993 12:16
                  -< The Pro-Life position -  a long version >-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  Ignorance
********************************

Someone said recently that a young girl who gets pregnant without really
knowing much of anything about sex or contraceptives "shouldn't be punished for
her ignorance."  No one is suggesting 'punishing' her for anything, but what's
more to the point, the unborn life that her ignorance has created shouldn't be
punished for her ignorance by being killed.  If her ignorance did not result in
a conception, no one would suggest imposing any sort of punishment upon her. 
However, if consequences have resulted from her ignorant actions, those
consequences must be *borne*, not *shirked* at someone else's expense.

It's a sad but true fact of life that ignorance is sometimes very costly.   If
a young kid through ignorance drives drunk, and as a result of that ignorant
action hits and kills someone, should they not be held responsible for the
death of that person because they "shouldn't be punished for their ignorance?"
No one would suggest such a thing.  Ignorance is never an excuse - life and
death consequences may fall upon people who had no idea they were risking those
consequences, or who had only a dim idea of the consequences and ignored them.  

If someone chooses to drive drunk, they may not realize or acknowledge the
possible consequence of killing an innocent person, but that may be the result
of their choice.  If it is they will be held responsible for that consequence,
and their denial or ignorance of the possibility of that consequence when they
chose the action that led to it are irrelevant.  Likewise someone choosing to
have sex may not realize or acknowledge that they are risking creating a new
life, but that may be the result of their choice.  If it is they should also be
held responsible for that consequence, and once again their denial or ignorance
of the possibility of that consequence when they made the choice to have sex
are irrelevant.  To allow them to then take the life of another to pay the cost
of their own ignorance is not right, even if that other life is a life created
as a result of their ignorance.

To suggest that it is "punishment" to not allow someone who through ignorance
has conceived a child to abort that child, is once again to assume that the
unborn is not a person.  This statement is meaningless if the unborn is already
a person.

           <<< YUKON::DISK$ARCHIVE:[NOTES$LIBRARY]CHRISTIAN.NOTE;1 >>>
          -<  ...by Believing, you might have Life more abundantly. >-
================================================================================
Note 109.59            The reality of late-term abortions               59 of 73
EVMS::EVMS::WEISS "Trade freedom for security-lose both"  1519 lines  21-JUN-1993 12:16
                  -< The Pro-Life position -  a long version >-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  So what SHOULD be legal?
********************************

So where do I stand on what abortions are legitimate?  I think that the reasons
which should be considered valid to have an abortion are the same reasons which
would be accepted in a court of law for killing any other person or
deliberately allowing them to die.  Personal self defense from impending bodily
injury or death is accepted in all courts as a valid reason for killing another
person.  There is no need to dehumanize the other, and there may be great
regret that the person was killed, but on every moral and ethical ground, self
defense is accepted as a valid reason to kill another person.  Therefore,
situations where the life of the mother is in jeopardy due to the pregnancy
should be a valid reason for abortion.  There is *FULL RECOGNITION* in this
stance that this act kills a living person, but that act is considered
justified.

On ethical grounds, I believe there is also a case to be made that in the case
of rape, abortion should be an option.  Essential to the position that the
woman has an obligation to support the life within her is the fact that she
chose actions which resulted in that life.  Whether she knew she was making
that choice, or whether it appears 'heartless' to insist that she not make that
choice unless she is prepared to support the conceived child, are not relevant. 
The consequences the world levies can seem heartless sometimes.  I am not
levying the consequences, I am merely seeking to prevent those consequences
from being disregarded at the cost of someone else's life.  

A case of rape, however, is exactly equivalent to the hypothetical situation
where the person was kidnaped and hooked up to the life support machine.  In
such a case I *do* think the person has a moral obligation to support the
person, I could not personally defend allowing someone to die because I was the
only person in a position to help them and was not willing to do so. However, I
don't think I can insist that anyone has an ethical obligation in such a case. 
In essence, in the case of rape a woman is being forced to comply with a
contract which she did not agree to.  It is sad and tragic that the one who
pays for this is not the one who forced her into the contract, and as I said I
think she should carry the child anyway, however I don't believe that anyone
has an ethical obligation to comply with forced contracts, regardless of the
outcome.  In a court situation, a person could not be compelled to support
another without being under contract to do so, even if that other person would
die without that support.  You can sue the father of a child in court for child
support, and he has to pay because he chose to be involved in the conception of
the child.  You can't sue any random person for child support, someone who had
no involvement or choice in the child's conception, even if the child might die
without that support.  I think the person SHOULD give that support if it is
required for the child's life, but I don't think that can be legitimately
enforced by law.

I do think that in cases of rape, abortion should be limited to very early
abortions.  Not because before the unborn is developed fully it is not human
and may be aborted for that reason, it is fully human whenever it is aborted. 
But at least an early abortion does not subject the unborn to a painful and
protracted death.  Before it has consciousness or can feel pain, aborting it is
the equivalent of dying in one's sleep.  Late-term abortion methods torture the
child to death.  While I can concede that a woman may cease to support a life
which she did not agree to support, even if the cessation of support results in
the cessation of that life, I can't condone or agree that she may subject that
life to a painful death to cease her support.  Particularly when she has had
the chance to cease her support prior to that with no pain to the unborn.

That's it.  In every other case, where the woman's life is not in danger and
where she has entered into sexual relations voluntarily (which comprises the
VAST majority of abortions), abortion is the murder of a life which the woman
has implicitly incurred responsibility for, and must be prohibited.

           <<< YUKON::DISK$ARCHIVE:[NOTES$LIBRARY]CHRISTIAN.NOTE;1 >>>
          -<  ...by Believing, you might have Life more abundantly. >-
================================================================================
Note 109.59            The reality of late-term abortions               59 of 73
EVMS::EVMS::WEISS "Trade freedom for security-lose both"  1519 lines  21-JUN-1993 12:16
                  -< The Pro-Life position -  a long version >-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  Scope
********************************

*IF* the unborn is in fact a human being, the scope of abortion in the country
is horrific, and the word "holocaust" most definitely applies.  In the last 20
years, 25 million abortions have occurred in this country.  If those have all
really been people, then we have systematically eliminated 10% of our
population over that time, or enough people to populate Canada.  The current
statistics are even more grim.   We have the Vietnam memorial commemorating the
58,000 men who died in Vietnam, and those deaths were indeed tragic.  More
lives that that will be lost in the next two weeks, and every two weeks, to
abortion.  Will there ever be a memorial for them?  405,000 Americans were lost
in the Second World War.  That's three months worth of abortions.  More people
will die this year and every year in this country to abortion than have been
killed in all the wars this country has ever fought.

Percentagewise it is terrible too.  A generation ago, "Safe as a mother's womb"
was a common phrase in our culture.  No more.  A mother's womb is by far the
most dangerous place in America.  In 1990, the last year for which I have
figures, there were 319 abortions in this country for every 1000 live births. 
That means that one out of every four children conceived in this country dies
at the hands of an  abortionist, at the request of their mother.  Living in an
inner-city gang is not nearly so dangerous.  The most violent cities have
perhaps a few hundred murders a year, a miniscule percentage.  Imagine if in
New York City (Total population is what, about 8 million?), 2 million people
were killed in the next nine months.  That's the magnitude of the percentages
we're talking about.  

It's even worse for black people.  For Blacks there are 500 abortions for every
1000 live births, or fully one out of every three.  Margaret Sanger, founder of
Planned Parenthood, had as one of her stated goals the elimination or reduction
of "undesirables," which included Blacks:  "Blacks, soldiers and Jews are a
menace to the race." (Margaret Sanger, April 1933 Birth Control Review).  A 
program which eliminates one out of every three black births is just the sort
of program that Sanger would have advocated, and Planned Parenthood has managed
to sell that program as a *BENEFIT*.  Doesn't that make anyone just the least
bit suspicious about their motives?  Sanger also classed the poor as
"undesirables," and a large percentage of abortions are to poor women.  Again,
abortion is sold as a benefit, and is exactly the sort of program Sanger would
have advocated, with the goal of eliminating as many poor people as possible.

           <<< YUKON::DISK$ARCHIVE:[NOTES$LIBRARY]CHRISTIAN.NOTE;1 >>>
          -<  ...by Believing, you might have Life more abundantly. >-
================================================================================
Note 109.59            The reality of late-term abortions               59 of 73
EVMS::EVMS::WEISS "Trade freedom for security-lose both"  1519 lines  21-JUN-1993 12:16
                  -< The Pro-Life position -  a long version >-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  Black slavery and Native American Genocide
********************************

I'll conclude with one final analogy.  There are a couple of horrible
incidents, and mindsets, in our recent past that bear examination, and
comparison with the abortion issue.  Though parallels have been drawn -
including some by me - between abortion and the Nazi Holocaust, there are also
some significant differences.  In that Holocaust, no one of any moral stature
really defended the genocide that was going on.  It was mostly conducted behind
closed doors, and even among those involved directly with it, all but a few
real thugs knew that what they were doing was wrong.  The general populace was
mostly conditioned not to resist or defend those among them who were being
destroyed, the Nazis were not successful in conditioning them to actually
support the genocide.  For the most part the populace in general would not have
defended what was actually happening, if they had really known.  There was some
effort to convince the people not to investigate what was really happening,
which is similar to the current abortion debate in this country, but there was
not an actual general support of the populace.

However, there are two significant issues in our own country's past that have
very striking similarities to the abortion question.  In both of them, as in
abortion, there was more than just a turning of the head and a not resisting
what was happening.  In both cases, there was a significant portion of the
populace, including many good and morally upstanding people, who actively
supported the issue.  In both cases, as in the case of abortion, this support
was based on the assumption that the people in question were not really human
beings.  

On the black slavery issue, people really did not believe that Blacks were
human beings.  Since they weren't human beings, then ownership of them was no
different than owning a horse.  And of course anyone, including people of fine
moral character, would agree that owning a horse was perfectly acceptable.  On
that basis, many good people supported slavery.  It is hard for us to
understand now, with our perspective gained through another 150 years, how they
could have believed that Blacks were not human beings, but they really did.  We
can't go condemning them for knowingly owning human slaves, they really did
believe that they were animals.  We can only condemn their letting their vested
interests get in the way of their judgment, since the evidence was there and
clear that Blacks were people.

           <<< YUKON::DISK$ARCHIVE:[NOTES$LIBRARY]CHRISTIAN.NOTE;1 >>>
          -<  ...by Believing, you might have Life more abundantly. >-
================================================================================
Note 109.59            The reality of late-term abortions               59 of 73
EVMS::EVMS::WEISS "Trade freedom for security-lose both"  1519 lines  21-JUN-1993 12:16
                  -< The Pro-Life position -  a long version >-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The same can be said of the Native Americans.  People really did not believe
that the Native Americans were humans.  Like the Blacks, they were "savages,"
some sort of sub-human race.  If they weren't human beings, then exterminating
them to clear land for settlement was no different than killing grizzly bears.
And of course anyone, including people of fine moral character, would agree
that exterminating dangerous grizzly bears was perfectly acceptable.  On that
basis, many good people supported the Native American genocide.  As with
Blacks, it is very hard for us to understand how they could have believed that
Native Americans were not human beings, but they really did.  Again, we can't
condemn them for intentional genocide.  We can only condemn their letting their
vested interests get in the way of their judgment, since the evidence was
there and clear that Native Americans were people.

The same is true today for the unborn.  People really do not believe that the
the unborn are humans.  If they aren't human beings, then  disposing of them is
no different than liposuction.  And of course anyone, including people of fine
moral character, would agree that disposing of unwanted fat cells is perfectly
acceptable.  On that basis, many good people support abortion.  As Blacks were
classed with workhorses and so were fit for ownership, as Native Americans were
classed with grizzly bears and so were fit for extermination, so the unborn are
now classed with a pancreas or with a bunch of fat cells and are fit to be
disposed of.  And as with Blacks and Native Americans, it is very hard for some
of us to understand how people can really believe that the unborn are not human
beings, but they really do.  Again, we can't condemn them for intentional
murder.  We can only condemn their letting their vested interests get in the
way of their judgment, since the evidence is there and clear that the unborn
are people.

The question needs to be asked of those who insist that the unborn is not a
human being:  Given that many good and intelligent people were convinced by the
arguments of their day that Blacks were not people, given that many good and
intelligent people were convinced by the arguments of their day that Native
Americans were not people, and given the absurdity of those conclusions in
light of what we know now, can you consider the possibility that the same fate
is befalling you?  Can you at least consider that you have been deceived?  Can
you consider that people in the future will look back upon you as we look back
upon slave owners and wonder how in the world you believe what you do?

Going back to the Blacks and Native Americans, how is it that so many people,
including many good and intelligent people who sought to to the right thing in
all circumstances, were able to ignore all the available and obvious evidence
and convince themselves that Blacks and Native Americans were not people?  It
was purely a question of **development**.  In this case, the difference was in
cultural and technological development.  The Europeans had large sailing ships
and guns, they rode horses and built solid houses, they had well developed
theology, literature, architecture, astronomy, etc.  They saw the "savages" who
carried primitive weapons made from barely-modified natural materials, lived in
simple huts made from animal skins or grasses, had no written language, had
what appeared to be simple superstitions as their only theological
understandings, etc.  

The Europeans looked at the vast differences in cultural development between
themselves and the "savages," and concluded that because of those differences -
differences purely of *development*, and not of any other essential nature,
that the "savages" were not fully human and were not deserving of any human
rights.  They had forgotten that their own ancestors lived in exactly the same
way, and they did not really make any effort to search and determine the common
ground they had with the Blacks and Native Americans to determine if those
other groups really were human beings.  The Europeans just noted the
developmental differences and classed the other races as non-humans.  Once they
had done that for a while, their vested interest in keeping those people
classed as non-humans prevented them from seriously examining the evidence
presented to them that those people *were* human beings.  It would be very
costly to them to recognize those group's humanity.  Plus many other arguments
were put forth that skirted the issue of whether they were really people, and
that made the essential part of the issue harder to distill from everything
that was being said.

Does that sound familiar?  That's exactly what is happening with abortion, and
is exactly the reason why many good and intelligent people support abortion. 
People have looked at the developmental differences, physical differences in
this case, and on the basis of those purely *developmental* differences and no
other differences of any essential nature, have declared that the unborn are
not human beings and do not deserve any rights or considerations.  As the
Europeans had once been at the same developmental point as the Blacks and
Native Americans but had forgotten it, each of us has been at the same point in
development as the unborn at one time, but have now forgotten it.  And as with
those other issues, the field of argument has been cluttered with many
positions that make it difficult to distill the true issue from all the dross.

           <<< YUKON::DISK$ARCHIVE:[NOTES$LIBRARY]CHRISTIAN.NOTE;1 >>>
          -<  ...by Believing, you might have Life more abundantly. >-
================================================================================
Note 109.59            The reality of late-term abortions               59 of 73
EVMS::EVMS::WEISS "Trade freedom for security-lose both"  1519 lines  21-JUN-1993 12:16
                  -< The Pro-Life position -  a long version >-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And now just as then, vested interest is playing a major role.  Just as slave
owners would not listen to the very clear evidence that Blacks were human,
because to do so would destroy their livelihood, just as settlers would not
listen to the very clear evidence that Native Americans were human, because to
do so would destroy their homes, so "women's rights activists" today will not
listen to the very clear evidence that the unborn are human, because to do so
would destroy the way of life they wish to "choose."  But just as the slave
owners were wrong, just as the settlers were wrong, so are abortion rights
activists wrong today.  I believe that in 100 years people will look back on
abortion as we look back on Black slavery and Native American genocide, and
wonder how people could possibly believe what they did, and how they could
possibly do what they did as a result of that belief.

It's also worth noting that many of the argument tactics used in those two
issues were very similar to what is used today in the abortion argument.  For
example, those of us who stand for the life and humanity of the unborn are
constantly labeled "anti-choice," and depicted as being cold and uncaring and
'heartless' about the women - and men - who would be impacted by recognizing
the humanity of the unborn.

When people would argue that Blacks were human, they were portrayed as having
no care or concern for the southern white people.  "Outlawing slavery will
destroy our way of life - do you want to do that?"  "Blacks will compete with
the poor white people for jobs, throwing them out of work - would you really do
that to your own people?"  Of course the people fighting slavery had no such
desires, they simply wanted the humanity of Blacks to be recognized, and if
that recognition impacted some other people whose current lifestyle depended on
not recognizing Blacks as humans, that was purely a side effect, and one that
had to be accepted if Blacks really were humans.

When people would argue that Native Americans were human, they were portrayed
as having no care or concern for settlers.  "Those savages murdered people in
such-and-such a settlement.  Would you stand with those savages against your
own people?"  To say that it was wrong to kill the "Indians" was liable to get
you lynched, as people would claim you didn't care about the settlers who had
been killed.  But that wasn't the case at all.  The people who were trying to
say that the Native Americans were people too were just as upset about the
settler's deaths as anyone else.  But if the Native Americans were people, then
it was not acceptable to slaughter them, despite the fact that that might cause
death, displacement, or hardship for some of the settlers.  Those consequences
had to be accepted if Native Americans really were humans.

Abortion is exactly the same.  When I stand for the life of the unborn, I
acknowledge that recognizing that life will cause hardship to many people.  I
understand that it is possible that recognizing that life may cause the death
of some people  (though I don't believe that is nearly as likely as is often
claimed).  I hurt for those hardships, I grieve for those deaths.  But those
consequences have to be accepted if the unborn really are humans.

Another example is the 'religious' argument.  Especially in the slavery issue,
abolitionists were constantly accused of bringing religion into politics, and
trying to force their religious beliefs on the slaveowners.  A common argument
was "If you don't believe in slavery, then don't own slaves.  But stop trying
to impose your values on other people.  It's none of your business"  Sound
familiar?  The point that is missed in both the slavery case and the abortion
case, is that if the slaves - or the unborn - are human beings, then it *IS*
our business that they are being enslaved or killed.  It is everyone's business
to stand up for those who are being oppressed, especially when they cannot
speak for themselves.  And though we may 

           <<< YUKON::DISK$ARCHIVE:[NOTES$LIBRARY]CHRISTIAN.NOTE;1 >>>
          -<  ...by Believing, you might have Life more abundantly. >-
================================================================================
Note 109.59            The reality of late-term abortions               59 of 73
EVMS::EVMS::WEISS "Trade freedom for security-lose both"  1519 lines  21-JUN-1993 12:16
                  -< The Pro-Life position -  a long version >-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Just as it would not be right to justify slavery by the impact on southerners
of recognizing Blacks as human beings, just as it would not be right to justify
genocide by the impact on settlers of recognizing Native Americans as human
beings, it is not right to justify disposal of millions of human beings per
year by the impact on women of recognizing the unborn as human beings.  In all
of these cases, the recognition of people's humanity ********MUST******** come
********FIRST********.  **IF** these groups are human, then the impact on other
groups **MUST** be borne, regardless of how great or how difficult to bear that
impact is.  **IF** these groups are humans, all other issues surrounding the
impact of recognizing their rights on other people are **IRRELEVANT**.  **IF**
they are human, their rights **MUST** be recognized.  End of story.

*IF* Blacks are humans, then white southerners *MUST* bear the impact of
recognizing their humanity, no matter the cost.  Slave owners *MUST* bear the
cost of the destruction of their livelihood.  Poor whites *MUST* bear the cost
of a huge influx into their workforce and the resulting unemployment and
hardship, including possible death from starvation.  Reality is hard, and those
costs are heavy, but it is *DEAD WRONG* for those groups of people to seek use
the avoidance of those costs as a justification of keeping another group of
human beings in slavery.  It would be *DEAD WRONG* to speak of the southerner's
'rights' or 'choice' to own slaves when those 'rights' and 'choices' involve
the trampling of other peoples rights, and the sentencing of other humans to
slavery.  

When the southerners did try to avoid those costs at the expense of Blacks, the
right thing to do was exactly what the North did - they *forced* the
southerners to recognize the Black's humanity, they *forced* the southerners to
grant Blacks equal rights.  The southerner's 'choice' or 'right' to hold Blacks
in slavery was disregarded, as subordinate to the rights of the Blacks to live
their own lives.  The respect of human rights demanded nothing less, and human
rights triumphed in that situation because there were enough people *OUTSIDE*
the group that was being oppressed who were willing to fight for them.  

Of course it takes many years - generations - for such a battle to be fully
won.   Over 100 years later we are still fighting for Black's rights, but 
slowly the tide changes until all but the most twisted can see that Blacks are
human too.  

*IF* Native Americans are humans, then settlers *MUST* bear the impact of
recognizing their humanity, no matter the cost.  They *MUST* bear the cost of
giving up their homes.  They *MUST* bear the cost of leaving land that belongs
to the Native Americans alone.  They *MUST* be content with whatever land the
Native Americans are willing to give them.  Reality is hard, and those costs
are heavy, but it is *DEAD WRONG* for that group of people to seek use the
avoidance of those costs as a justification of wholesale slaughter of another
group of human beings.  It would be *DEAD WRONG* to speak of the settler's
'rights' or 'choice' to the land they had taken when those 'rights' and
'choices' involve the trampling of other people's rights, and the sentencing of
other humans to death or displacement.   

When the settlers did try to avoid those costs at the expense of Native
Americans, the right thing to do was to *force* the settlers to recognize the
humanity of the Native Americans and to *force* them to leave the Native
Americans alone on their ancestral land.  The settler's 'choice' or 'right' to
eradicate them and take the land for themselves should have been disregarded,
as subordinate to the rights of the Native Americans to live their own lives.  
The respect of human rights demanded nothing less.  Sadly, human rights lost in
that situation because there were *NOT* enough people outside the group that
was being oppressed that were willing to fight for them.  The Native Americans
were slaughtered and the remnants who survived were herded onto the most barren
pieces of land the whites could find.

           <<< YUKON::DISK$ARCHIVE:[NOTES$LIBRARY]CHRISTIAN.NOTE;1 >>>
          -<  ...by Believing, you might have Life more abundantly. >-
================================================================================
Note 109.59            The reality of late-term abortions               59 of 73
EVMS::EVMS::WEISS "Trade freedom for security-lose both"  1519 lines  21-JUN-1993 12:16
                  -< The Pro-Life position -  a long version >-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

*IF* the unborn are humans, then women AND men *MUST* bear the impact of
recognizing their humanity, no matter the cost.  Women *MUST* bear the cost of
supporting the developing child they have conceived within their body.  After
birth, both men and women *MUST* either take direct responsibility for raising 
the child they have conceived, contribute heavily to the cost of raising the
child, or find another who is willing to raise them.   They *MUST* bear the
cost to their plans, their lifestyle, and their life options of supporting a
child if they choose actions which lead to the child's conception.  If they
wish to avoid those costs, they *MUST* bear the cost to their sexuality, they
*MUST* be willing to abstain from acts which would create children.  Reality is
hard, and those costs will be heavy, but it is *DEAD WRONG* for people to seek
use the avoidance of those costs as a justification for the killing and
disposal of another group of human beings.  It is *DEAD WRONG* to speak of
women's 'rights' or 'choice' to control their bodies when those 'rights' and
'choices' involve the trampling of other peoples rights, and the sentencing of
other humans to death.  

When women - or men - try to avoid those costs at the expense of the unborn,
the right thing to do is to *force* them to recognize the humanity of the
unborn, *force* them to leave the unborn a chance at life, and *force* them to
provide support for the life they have created.  Just as it was right to
*force* white slave owners to free their slaves, just as it would have been
right to *force* white settlers to leave their land and give it back to the
people they stole it from.  As with the slave owner's or the settler's 'rights'
or 'choice' to continue in their oppression of other human beings, the 'choice'
or 'right' to dispose of the unborn should be disregarded, as subordinate to
the rights of the unborn to live.  The respect of human rights demands nothing
less.

Will there be enough people outside the group that is being destroyed that are
willing to fight for them?  Will human rights lose here again, as they did with
the Native Americans?  Will we continue to kill millions of people a year
because we claim they are not human beings?  Or will we begin the long, long
road to fully recognizing the rights of the unborn, as was begun 130 years ago
with the Black slaves?

PLEASE honor Paul's erudite and considerable effort by remembering
to firmly engage brain *BEFORE* putting mouth (or keyboard) in gear!

Thanks,

Brian_the_scribe

    I believe this to be a very good exercise in apologetics.  Always
    being ready to give a reason for the hope that is in you.
    
    I would recommend this whole string be transferred to Soapbox, String
    20.  Thanks for all the input!!
    
    God Speed,
    
    -Jack

>    I would recommend this whole string be transferred to Soapbox, String
>    20.  Thanks for all the input!!

It was originally written for posting there, since it is a secular defense.  It 
was just reposted here mostly out of courtesy.

The response in SOAPBOX has been astounding - absolutely nothing.  I posted it
there more than two weeks ago.  There was a fair amount of activity in the file
at the time.  There was not a single response of any kind after I posted that,
for over 24 hours, which is rare for that note.  Then someone else started 
another discussion, and people just went along as if my note never existed,
singing their same old "choice" song.  Aside from one or two "well done" notes, 
not a single person has referenced a single point my note.

I've been completely amazed.  The "pro-choice" folks love to say how well-
reasoned and open-minded they are, and how closed minded and unreasonable and
unrational pro-life people are.  Yet when answered with reason, they have
absolutely nothing to say.

Next week, I'll be drawing attention to that fact over in SOAPBOX.

Paul

>I've been completely amazed.  The "pro-choice" folks love to say how well-
>reasoned and open-minded they are, and how closed minded and unreasonable and
>unrational pro-life people are.  Yet when answered with reason, they have
>absolutely nothing to say.

Bingo, Paul.  Reason and Truth go hand in hand.  The Truth is entirely 
reasonable.  You haven't got a response there because there is no 
reasonable response - only more rhetoric.  The pro-choice (pro-abortion)
crowd do not use REASON to support their position.  They use EMOTION
and SELFISHNESS.  Their position cannot stand up to logic and is therefore
UNreasonABLE.

Mark

    UNreasonABLE.
    
    That is one of the best play on words I've ever seen... tell Mark is it
    an orginal?
    
    And for what it's worth most of my notes aren't responded to either. 
    Greg chose to side step both of my notes and refocus the attention on
    the *judgement* of God as he sees fit, rather then seriously looking at
    what Steve Leech and myself stated about looking towards God Himself
    for judgement.
    
    Understandable though, very understandable.  Most dysfunction continues
    because the unknown, though better, is scarey, is overpowered by the
    deception of safety in the familiar.
    
    I think this applies also to those who would argue pro-choice.  To
    admit it to be murder, would have dire [sp] emotional consequences.
    
    Nancy

For an interesting education, present the Pro-Life view in the Abortion
Discussion Topic in IKE22::WOMANNOTES-V4.

Be aware that it is policy to delete notes there which "have a high
content of unsupported opinion".  Of course, only Pro-Life opinions
are ever considered "unsupported".  So don't expect many of your
notes to remain in the conference, if they say anything substantial.

/john

I will, at some point.  I don't have the energy to follow up on it right now.

Then again, given the response in SOAPBOX, maybe I won't have to follow up at
all?

Paul