Re: Fetal tissue

James Rogers (jamesr@best.com)
Tue, 03 Mar 1998 19:33:00 -0800


At 04:48 PM 3/3/98 -0500, Reilly Jones wrote:
>
><But a fetus is not yet a person.>
>
>Purely by definition, and mostly, but not entirely, for convenience's sake.
> A slave was not a full person at the time we kicked those tyrannical Brits
>back across the Atlantic, either. Yet, solely by definition, they
>eventually became a person. Do you see the parallel?
>

This does *not* parallel.

WHITE/BLACK SLAVERY:
A green apple and a red apple are both apples. While superficially
different they are functionally identical. There is a measure of
equivalence between these two apples, so judgements should be based on a
principle of equivalence.

FETAL ABORTION:
Consider a green apple and a green apple *seed*. In this case we are more
concerned with the relationship being *equitable* because by definition
there is no equivalence. An equitable judgement will not always favor the
fetus.

-James Rogers
jamesr@best.com