🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Apr13.021145.19473@deeptht.santa-cruz.ca.us> rstevew@deeptht.santa-cruz.ca.us (Richard Steven Walz) writes:

>A more likely scenario. RU-486 excedes cocaine in price per weight,
>and no one needs that much so say so long to the embryo. And the
>substance is easily concealed in plastic capsules which are not
>radio-opaque, and are smuggled into this country by businessmen who
>are sympathetic at $1000 a run

Or not so sympathetic.  One of the problems which criminalizing an
activity is that criminals tend to take over the activity.  There is
nothing about gambling or alcohol which makes their purveyors violent--
but gangs which ran illegal gambling rackets and bootleg liquor engaged
in violent territorial conflicts, purveyed adulterated products,
and generally were not likeable characters.  If abortion is made illegal,
there's already an infrastructure in place for the importation and
distribution of illegal pharmaceuticals, and the people involved have
no qualms about drive-by shootings and probably few about diluting
the stuff by half with sugar-- or rat poison.  After all, unlike
addictive drugs, repeat business is going to be relatively rarer and
less frequent (the theoretical _maximum_ per customer would be once
per month, and the average would be less than once per _year_), so
a given pusher is less likely to care whether he loses a "client"
by providing a bad product in some way.  Like one gangster put it,
"every time they pass a law, they make a new business"; which doesn't
mean "Don't pass laws", but it does mean be very sure you've considered
_all_ the consequences.

>"poor". It is funnelled to pay for their abortions. Alternatively,
>some underground labs synthesize it here and disribute it so widely
>that the doctors strike till the supreme court relents and the
>president resigns.

Or alternately declares war on the gangs, with concomitant reductions
in civil liberties.

>Remember, the American reveolution was fought by fewer than 4% of the
>people. All it takes is a dedicated few to turn a society upside down.

True, but the October Revolution in Russia required an even smaller
number.  Revolution can be right, but it can also be disastrous,
and it's imperative that you set the lines you won't cross _before_
you start the fight, because there'll be fanatics in any movement,
and it's too easy for a revolution to be hijacked by its most ruthless
members.

Mike



-- 
Michael S. Schiffer, LHN, FCS	"Never let your sense of morality prevent
mss2@midway.uchicago.edu	 you from doing what's right!"
mike.schiffer@um.cc.umich.edu	 --Mayor Salvor Hardin of Terminus
mss2@usite-next.uchicago.edu     Isaac Asimov, _Foundation_