From:    Chris Sonnack
Subject: H.V.A. - Sidebar #2: Abortion

 The more I think about hectors, the more uses I find for them.  The
 other day I realized you can productively apply them to the way
 people feel about abortion.  (Their greatest power, it seems to me,
 it their ability to graphically demonstrate how and why people can
 hold apparently conflicting feelings.)

 Check this out:

				 *.......................@ <---  A person with what we often
 The Feeling |                   +   .       call "mixed" emotions.  The
 Abortion Is |               +       .       diagram demonstrates how a
 Destroying  |           +           .       person can have conflicting
 Something   |       +               .       feelings about a thing.
 Human       |   +                   .
				 0-----------------------*
					The Feeling Woman Must
					Have That Choice.

 Most people, IMO, have some sense of the vertical hector, although the
 horizontal one varies widely from person to person (most "pro-life"
 people would have zero-length hectors here).  As in all things, there
 are extremists for along both axes:

			 *@ <-- Feels abortion is totally wrong and without excuse.
		T   |.     We've all met people who feel this way.
		F   |.
		A   |.                    Someone with the occasionally expressed
		I   |.                    view that the fetus is "just a lump of
		D   |.                    cells" or "essentially a parasite".
		S   |.                    We've all met people like this, too.
		H   |.            *.................................@ <---
			 0*            0---------------------------------*
											 TFWMHTC

 So once again, we have a "human phase space" of feelings on abortion:

			 *@@@@@ @  @   @  @@ @@
		T   |@@@@@@ @ @ @@  @@ @@ @<------ me now after taking on the
		F   |@@@@@   @  @  @ @ @@@ @       "pro-life" POV for a few
		A   |@@   @    @ @  @@ @ @@ @       months.
		I   |  @    @     @  @ @ @ @ @
		D   |          @ @   @ @@ @<----- where I was before -- my feeling
		S   |   @          @ @@@@@@@@@    about choice hasn't changed but
		H   | @    @       @@@@@@@@@@@@   I have a stronger feeling about
			 0--------------------------*  the 'tragic' aspects.
						  TFWMHTC

 Those in the lower left corner don't have strong feelings one way or
 another; those in the upper right area have strong feelings.  Those in
 the upper left and lower left areas are strongly oriented towards a
 single feeling (Note the alignment of strong feelings on this issue!).

 The point, again, is a demonstration of how and why we can experience
 conflicting feelings about something.  Note also that I have only
 diagrammed TWO feelings here; there are many other feelings about the
 subject (abortion to save the mother's life or in the case of rape).
 These feelings can be easily included in the analysis -- the above was
 just to illustrate the technique.