And I remain puzzled how Marta can still regard herself to be pro-choice in regards to abortion, since she apparently thinks that many if not most abortions are done for trivial or otherwise morally and politically unacceptable reasons. And Nat Hentoff as I recall does call himself "pro-life" on the abortion issue.
Jim F.
On Tue, 7 Aug 2001 20:17:15 -0400 Yoshie Furuhashi <furuhashi.1 at osu.edu>
writes:
> Marta says:
>
> >ravi narayan wrote:
> >
> >> > "I have always supported a womans right to choose, but that
> gets harder
> >> > and harder to do, the deeper one explores what is really
> happening. It
> >> > is in my own enlightened self interest to reject what can
> potentially
> >> > kill me."
> >> > --Marta Russell
> > > > http://nuance.dhs.org/lbo-talk/9811/1029.html
> > >
> > > i do not understand this. how is it meaningful to talk about
> self
> >> interest before there is a self? once i am born and my self
> exists
> >> it is clear to me that i am thankful for my existence. but if
> the
> >> fetus (that turned out to be me) was aborted, then there seems
> no
> >> meaning in talking about my happiness or regrets because there
> is
> >> no "me" and there never will be.
> >
> >Well yes in the individual sense. But I am disabled -- so if
> society
> >aborted disabled fetuses in toto as a class/group of fetuses, I
> would
> >have been wiped out as a matter of due course. Is that clearer?
>
> However, according to the social model of disability that you
> advocate, it is not biological qualities of fetuses but social
> relations that disable individuals (temporarily or permanently or
> progressively), so it follows that it is impossible to "wipe out"
> the
> disabled through selective abortion without also abolishing
> disabling
> social relations. Even the healthiest who can best approximate the
> ever-changing fantasy of "normality" cannot but become disabled if
> they live long enough, since our world doesn't make it easy for the
> elderly to thrive. Your fear that selective abortion may "wipe out"
>
> "disabled fetuses in toto as a class/group of fetuses" seems to
> return us -- against your professed intention -- to a biological
> model of disability, much as the fear of some gay men & lesbians
> that
> the discovery of "gay gene" may lead to selective abortion &
> genocide
> of "homosexual fetuses" betrays a biological model of sexuality,
> despite gains made by historical approaches to understanding
> sexuality.
>
> There is, however, a possibility that the incidence of some --
> though
> far from all -- categories of physical conditions may decrease
> through prenatal diagnosis & selective abortion. Must we fight
> against this possibility, motivated by your fear? If so, the same
> fear logically demands that we fight against medicine (curative as
> well as preventive), worker-safety regulations, consumer-safety
> regulations, better nutrition, democratic education, egalitarian
> socio-economic development, etc. also, since all of them are known
> to
> contribute to the decrease in many kinds & degrees of disability.
>
> Yoshie
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