From: Barbara Lamar (shabrika@juno.com)
Date: Fri Sep 15 2000 - 09:03:44 MDT
On Fri, 15 Sep 2000 08:57:56 -0400 "Michael S. Lorrey"
<retroman@turbont.net> writes:
ZP:
t what you are advocating is clearly the
> right
> > > to
> > > murder the most defenseless members of society.
BL:
> > You're doing the same when you kill a fetus. Why kid yourself and
> > pretend that you're not?
> Because there is a distinct legal distinction involved. As I've
> posted here
> before, citizenship is recognised as being conferred at birth.
This is true, but it's not a satisfying distinction at a time when 3
month fetuses can be removed from the mother's womb and grown on in an
incubator. And there are other circumstances where it may be desirable
to have a clearer definition of human life, or a clearer concept of how
it's to be dealt with. How about when the time comes that a microscopic
embryo can be grown to term in an artificial womb?
> The unborn
> are not citizens, and have no rights.
Desptie the rhetoric of the "Pro-lifers", I think the real issue here
isn't the rights of the unborn, but rather the rights of the mother.
And, as ZP pointed out, the rights of the father as well, since the
father can be forced to support a child once it's born--and once embryos
can be grown to term in artificial wombs, I'd argue that the father has
as much right as the mother to decide the fate of the embryo. Until
artificial wombs are perfected, I think the decision to HAVE a child must
rest with the mother alone; to decide otherwise would be to decide in
favor of slavery. That is to say, at this point in time, the decision
whether or not to bear a child should be the mother's, but the father
should have the right to veto a decision in favor of bearing the child.
This raises further questions, such as whether the mother should have the
right to override the father's veto if she agrees to waive rights to
paternal support for the child.
Barbara
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