Hi, Scott and all,
Sorry for not answering sooner, but keeping up with all the mail I'm
receiving, working and trying not to fail my exams is something of a
exercise in control...
[end of whimpering, back to the post]
Sktea@aol.com wrote:
>
> Denis said:
>
> > ...the right to abort was created mainly to preserve the social and
> biological comfort of women... [snip]
>
> Do you think the decision to uphold the right to abort might also have
> considered the predicament of the hypothetical child? Born because,
> essentially, the mother was forced to have it; possibly brought up in a
> household in which the parent or parents resent its existence, or alternately
> raised in an orphanage or foster home (as many kids put up for adoption are).
>
> Dunno as I think it's right, but then there are degrees of Quality. Does one
> necessarily abort to avoid responsibility, or is it possible one may abort
> because one cannot provide for the child and cannot abide the thought of
> giving it up for adoption? Would the latter case necessarily regard "the
> social and biological comfort" of the woman?
>
> Hard questions, no pat answers. Darn...
>
> -Scott, father of a beautiful boy
I've voluntarily avoided this problem, because while it is often raised
in defence of the right to abort, it seems to me that it muddles the
waters a bit further instead of clarifying them (as you seem to have
experienced ;) ).
What can we know of the future social environment of the child ?
If it is not wanted, it can always be given up for adoption, if the
mother thinks she'd be a bad mother. From then on, the best like the
worse could happen, but we're all in the same situation. Born by chance,
in a rich country with a good family, I appreciate everyday the fact
that I'm not an orphan in India, a starving child in Africa or even a
poor immigrant in France, subject to prejudice and bad educational
environment (most first-generation immigrants from Maghreb were
illiterate).
Any child could end at both end of the social spectrum, and giving it up
isn't any insurance it will end up any better than if the mother had
kept it. Besides, being poor or uneducated isn't the same as being
unhappy (though they often correlate) and being rich sure isn't any
straight path to happiness (countless depressive and/or suicidal
children can attest to that).
So, in the end "one may abort because one cannot provide for the child
and cannot abide the thought of giving it up for adoption", is IMHO a
selfish decision, and an immoral one because it is favoring the social
aspect of the child over its intellectual one. "Better no social
patterns than bad ones" is an idea that can have dire repercussions if
left to fester : why not sterilize all poor people then ?
I know it's not what you meant, but still, better safe than sorry. ;)
As for the "cannot abide the thought of giving it up for adoption", I'm
sure you understand this is the comfort of the woman that's involved. In
the end, she'll have to decide if she wants to give it a chance, whether
she keeps it or not, at some inconvienience to herself, or if she
decides it has no identity or rights separate from herself, and
terminates it for her convienience (social, biological). That decision,
whether or not the foetus should be considered as a human being with
human rights, is her to make (or to experience in a moment of DQ).
I saw a post (I can't find it and don't want to write another post on
the subject anyway, so I'm killing two birds with one stone) where the
notion of 'fetuscide' came up (you cause a woman to abort my accident or
ill intent). It was argued that if killing a fetus by accident was
illegal, how could killing it intentionally be moral ? Well, it's the
same problem applied to society : whether or not the society considers
the fetus to be a human being. In France, I think it would be charged as
'accidental wounding' of the mother, and not 'accidental murder' of the
fetus. So, we're still stuck were Pirsig wanted us : we have to look for
Dynamic Quality.
BTW, I think abortion is a wrong decision to take. But in this, I could
definitely be wrong, and would hate a know-it-all to lord it over me and
my doubts and tell me he knows the definite answer, "here boy, there's
your new Ten Commandments". It feels like a good decision to give a
biological unit a chance at moral evolution, but I'm not paying the
bill...
Nor will I ever.
Denis
MOQ Online Homepage - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
Unsubscribe - http://www.moq.org/md/index.html
MD Queries - horse@wasted.demon.nl
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat Aug 17 2002 - 16:03:05 BST