I will probably have a few comments to offer on this article later.
--Gary ]
Dear Gary... a few quick points...
1: I am not among those opposed to abortion "under any circumstances".
In the event you desire to know what my position is:
In the language of my opponents, I suport the right to choose. Once. Once
that choice has been made, making a second choice requires the freedom
to kill somebody. In the event that a woman has become pregnant without
her choice and concent (rape, whether forceable or statutory) she still has
yet to choose, and may choose whichever way she wants to. She may also kill
her unborn child in reasonable self-defence.
Parenthetically, if my position is a religious one, is theirs an
irreligious one? One of the hallmarks of our changing intolerance hammered
on in the letter that evoked this note is what forms of religious and
irreligious sentiment we will tolerate, and which we will criticize. Used
to be we were down-the-nose at people who used the name of God in vain,
nowadays we down-the-nose at people who use it seriously.
Quip for the day: Many people think they are thinking when in truth they
are only re-arranging their predjudices.
2: The debate on abortion here is to an extent applicable to public
discussion of Native issues, in that our values and assumptions are called
into question:
Which assumptions and values are to be used when evaulating both the
circumstances and decisions of the Native peoples, and when deciding what
we Whites do right or wrong towards them.
Should we fund abortion services to Natives? Should we encourage the
use of it?
Should we talk of it as either a (partially) suppressed right of
(partially) suppressed Womankind, or as a White institution (of grossest
iniquity and inequity) alien to the principles of the Native cultures, and to
some of us as well? Something inbetween? All of the above?
What we think about what we do colors our evaluation of what we do to the
Natives we (as a Nation as a whole) both despise and espouse. We do not have
one voice on abortion. We should not sound like we do. Obviously, "what is
abortion" differs from viewer to viewer. I do not believe anybody here is
going to change the mind of anybody else here in the matter of abortion. My
speaking against it is in response to others speaking for it. Some claim loud
and long that it is a solution. I answer it is a problem. Is balance or
plurality of opinion unacceptable? Should the "A" word simply dissapear here?
3: Most central to this forum, (as pertaining to abortion and other aspects of
the White culture, including those not held as controversial amongst us):
Which values should we propose to the Natives as ones they should consider
adopting, and how should they be presented? What should we say to them that
these things we propose _are_? Before deciding what is the color of the
landscape, we need remember what is the color of our glasses. My tax dollars
support abotion, this forum is the only place I have ever written about it.
Whether you post this or not is your call. I think the thoughts are not
irrelevant, but still off the subject of whether covert sterilizations take
place.
brunner@kazoo.ssd.loral.com; Space Systems/Loral; Palo Alto, Calif.