Flushing Morals Down the Toilet

Cornell Daily Sun ^ | October 1, 2001 | Matt Flahive

[The American]

Great ideas just come to some people while sitting on the toilet. It's as if the john has magical powers of inspiration. In Collegetown dorm bathrooms, residential advisors try to help induce genius with the Collegetown Grapevine newsletter. Recent issues of the biweekly publication have covered hard-hitting topics like dessert recipes, Mountain Dew and a fictional story about stolen cake. The latest Grapevine proves to be a tad more thought provoking; it teaches you how to murder your children.

This is not your grandparents' bathroom literature. Gone are the days of The Old Farmers' Almanac and old copies of Sports Illustrated, and in their stead is abortion propaganda.

Maybe I'm a little strange, but when I go to the bathroom, I'm there to do my business and get out before being overwhelmed by the stench of half-digested burritos. Now, in what used to be a shelter from pro-choice activists, I am surrounded by the latest news about abortion techniques.

The Grapevine's current issue has a Mayo Clinic article telling you just how effective the morning after pill truly is, even up to 120 hours after unprotected sexual intercourse. As if dorm bathrooms don't already have enough garbage in them. The Grapevine could have provided arguments for and against abortion. It could have included information about adoption or abstinence. Instead, it subjects unsuspecting students to a horribly biased viewpoint about dealing with unexpected pregnancies. Apparently college students have one option when pregnant -- filicide. And with the morning after pill, you don't need to scramble to schedule an abortion procedure, you just pop a few pills 12 hours apart.

The regiment of pills endearingly referred to as the "morning after pill" skyrockets a woman's hormone levels. The woman's womb then rejects any embryos that might be growing, killing them before they ever had a chance. In other words, if a woman was indeed impregnated, the morning after pill changes life to death upwards of 90 percent of the time. It also causes nausea, vomiting, dizziness and headaches ... but that's all fine and dandy as long as the woman can fit into her black leather pants next week. Besides, college students value a good social life above a child's life, right?

Call me old-fashioned, but I believe that killing another human being, except in cases of self-defense, is wrong. I haven't heard of many evil creatures jumping out of women's stomachs like Ripley's nightmare in Aliens, so we can throw out that whole self-defense excuse when talking about fertilized eggs. And a human embryo will be able to live outside the womb in a few short months, if given the opportunity. Thus logic concludes that abortions, whether they are performed on an operating table or in a dorm room, are wrong.

Even more repulsive, those aborted are young, developing human beings who are both needy and vulnerable. We as a human society should not condone the slaughter of those who need our help. Starving people are needy, senior citizens are vulnerable, yet we do not permit murdering them. Maybe it's that whole "young and developing" description that gives us a license to kill. And even that argument only works in certain situations.

If you kick a pregnant mother in the stomach, causing her young and developing baby to die, you will face a murder sentence. If you smother a prematurely born baby, still young and developing on life support, that too is murder. Fortunately, the Grapevine reminded us about an alternative to punting a mother's womb or jamming a pillow over a newborn's face. These days, women can easily get rid of unwanted children by taking two to four hormone pills. And guess what folks, it's legal.

And if it's legal, well then that must mean it is a good thing. You won't go to prison for playing with a Whoopee Cushion during a funeral, either, but nobody does that. Human decency provides a code of right and wrong that we respect even more than the law, a code that guides our decisions. We abandon this code when we choose abortions. We snub the infertile couples around the world waiting to adopt. We ignore the families eager to open their homes to those in need. We go so far as to use dorm bathrooms to encourage the morning after pill.

The Collegetown Grapevine writers probably thought they were doing the dorm residents a favor by publicizing the morning after pill. They could not have been more wrong. What we need to do is promote life, especially to our generation, which needs a moral shot-in-the-arm.

We can be the most productive generation the world has ever seen. We can leave a great world for future generations, but future generations of what? Cockroaches, snakes, aliens? Certainly not humans, if we continue to kill our own offspring.

[The American]

That's some crazy stuff appearing in Cornell dorm bathrooms.