Posted on 06/19/2002 12:10:49 PM PDT by gordgekko
Abortion. The word alone causes civil conversation to flee the room. This is largely because the pro-choice and pro-life positions are being defined by their extremes, by those who scream accusations in lieu of arguments.
More reasonable voices and concerns, on both sides of the fence, are given short shrift.
For example, pro-life extremists seem unwilling to draw distinctions between some abortions and others, such as those resulting from rape or incest with an underage child. They would make no exception in the recent real-life case of a woman who discovered in her fifth month that her baby would be born dead due to severe disabilities.
On the other hand, pro-choice extremists within feminism insist on holding inconsistent positions. The pregnant woman has an unquestionable right to abort, they claim. Yet if the biological father has no say whatsoever over the woman's choice, is it reasonable to impose legal obligations upon him for child support? Can absolute legal obligation adhere without some sort of corresponding legal rights?
The only hope for progress in the abortion dialogue lies in the great excluded middle, in the voices of average people who see something wrong with a young girl forced to bear the baby of a rapist.
Any commentary on abortion should include a statement of the writer's position. I represent what seems to be a growing "middle ground" in pro-choice opinion. Legally, I believe in the right of every human being to medically control everything under his or her own skin. Many things people have a legal right to do, however, seem clearly wrong to me: adultery, lying to friends, walking past someone who is bleeding on the street. Some forms of abortion fall into that category. Morally speaking, my doubts have become so extreme that I could not undergo the procedure past the first trimester and I would attempt to dissuade friends from doing so.
Partial-birth abortion has thrown many pro-choice advocates into moral mayhem. I find it impossible to view photos of late-term abortion — the fetus' contorted features, the tiny fully formed hands, the limbs ripped apart — without experiencing nausea. This reaction makes me ineffectual in advocating the absolute right to abortion. I stand by the principle, "a woman's body, a woman's right" but I don't always like myself for doing so.
It is difficult to remember how many times other feminists have urged me not to express moral reservations. "Abortion requires solidarity" is the general line of argument. Such voices do as much damage to the pro-choice position as the anti-abortion zealots who harass women as they enter clinics do to the pro-life one.
Fanatics on both sides are using reprehensible and deceitful tactics. An honest dialogue on abortion must start by re-setting the stage, by denouncing the approaches that block communication.
What are those approaches?
Many pro-choice advocates approve of using tax money to fund abortion. For example, starting in July, abortion training — formerly elective — will be required training for obstetrics and gynecology residents in New York City's 11 public hospitals. Those wishing to avoid the required training must provide religious or moral justification. The furor created by this use of tax money has been phrased as a battle over abortion when, in reality, it is about whether government should finance women's personal choices with the taxes of those who strenuously object. Government support of abortion must cease.
Pro-life extremists threaten the lives and safety of both those who provide and those who undergo the procedure. The murder of "abortion" doctors is in the news with the current trial of anti-abortion militant James Kopp, accused of murdering Dr. Barnett Slepian in New York and wanted for attacks on two doctors in Canada.
Recent concerns have been raised for the safety of the women involved. Anti-abortion zealots are photographing women as they enter clinics and, then, posting the photographs on the Internet. The women are identified as "baby killers." The pro-life movement must lead in denunciating this violence or no discussion can occur.
Pro-choice advocates should stop the attempt to silence those with doubts and cease their hypocrisy on issues surrounding abortion. Consider the National Organization for Women. NOW decries the anti-abortion stand as violence against women's reproductive rights. Yet it is mute (or much worse) on the greatest reproductive atrocity against women in the world — China's one-child policy.
Pro-life leaders should start being candid about how they plan to enforce a ban on abortion. For example, if they believe abortion is premeditated murder, then they seem logically constrained to impose first-degree murder penalties — including the death penalty, if applicable — upon women who abort and those who assist her. Are they willing to do this while remembering that murder has no statute of limitations?
Those who shove posters depicting an aborted fetus into the faces of pro-choice advocates have an equal responsibility to confront the consequences of their own policies. How, short of totalitarian government agencies, can they control what is in a woman's womb, and when?
I don't know if good will is possible on this highly charged and divisive issue. Both sides may find themselves able to work together on measures that improve the situation, for example, by making adoption far easier. What I do know is that the extremes cannot be allowed to dominate debate. The stakes in abortion are too high.
Wendy McElroy is the editor of ifeminists.com. She is the author and editor of many books and articles, including the forthcoming anthology Liberty for Women: Freedom and Feminism in the 21st Century (Ivan R. Dee/Independent Institute, 2002). She lives with her husband in Canada.
Sigh- If the baby was going to be born dead, why would one need to kill it?
Im not sure if you understood. The argument I was mentioning is against making abortion illegal, because if "a woman is forced to cary the baby to term, then she is a ward of the state". I think the argument is illogical and silly, because one is forced to care for the child for 18 years(in most cases), and that too, under the same logic, would make the woman(and the man) a "ward of the state".
Name one mainstream, reputable American pro-life group that has suggested that women who abort ought to be executed, even if rape or incest had nothing to do with it.
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Cool. An excellent argument for abortion partisans to promote! ;-)
Do I understand this correctly? She is nauseated at what she willingly supports, and laments only that her natural human reaction makes her "ineffectual" in advocating that which she can not stand the sight of?
Anti-abortion zealots are photographing women as they enter clinics and, then, posting the photographs on the Internet. The women are identified as "baby killers." The pro-life movement must lead in denunciating this violence or no discussion can occur.
Whether or not public shame and labelling is an invitation to violence, "denunciating" is not a word. "Denouncing" is a word.
SD
In pro-abortspeak, that translates, "Choices for me, but not for thee."
The furor created by this use of tax money has been phrased as a battle over abortion when, in reality, it is about whether government should finance women's personal choices with the taxes of those who strenuously object. Government support of abortion must cease.
I'll meet her on this middle ground. Minnesota's Doe v. Gomez ruling, which purports to find constitutional grounds for governmental funding of abortions, is based on the same kind of bald-faced lies that undergirded Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton (both of whose plaintiffs, now pro-lifers, have admitted the lies).
In Minnesota, legislation was introduced last session to end government funding of abortion. I don't recall its fate, but it's reasonably safe to say it was either killed (probably by Roger Moe) in committee or threatened with a veto by the Grand Exalted Pro-Abort Potentate Jesse. If you need more info, I'll track it down.
A few interesting facts about Minnesota's abortions and the unknown state policy to encourage childbirth over abortion (I can't understand why those pro-aborts aren't publicizing this statute):
According to the Center for Health Statistics, Minnesota Department of Health, Minnesota reported 14,450 abortions in 2000. Almost half of these (42 percent) were to women who reported having at least one previous abortion, and almost 1,000 abortions (928) were performed on women who had already had three or more abortions. Nearly 70 percent (9,965) reported using no form of contraception at the time of conception.
“The data from the MDH clearly demonstrates that women are using abortion as a method of birth control,” says Scott Fischbach of MCCL. “When you consider that less than 1 percent of the state’s abortions are a result of rape or incest, it really shows how much influence Big Abortion has in this state.”
According to the Office of Revisor of Statutes, State of Minnesota, it is the policy of the state to encourage childbirth over abortion. The statute (256B.011) reads: “Between normal childbirth and abortion, it is the policy of the state of Minnesota that normal childbirth is to be given preference, encouragement and support by law and by state action, it being in the best interests of the well being and common good of Minnesota citizens.”
If you really want to see the pro-aborts go ballistic, bring up the subject of a male abortion. In male abortin, the father files a document renouncing the life of the child including all the rights and priveleges pertaining to paternity of said child (even if the kid grows up to become a gazillionare) and all responsibilities as well. The father can file the paper at any time during pregnancy when it would be legal for the mother to get an abortion. You can even slap a $300 filing fee on it.
I bet you can guess what the "pro choice" crowd thinks of that idea.
Shalom.
Could you blame someone who killed a child at a bus stop because his mom was raped?
IOW: When they are an immediate threat to your life and the only way to defend yourself is to kill them first.
However, if you added rape I would not refuse to back the bill. I would wait for another day to prove that killing the child conceived in rape does not unrape the mother.
So well stated that I think it bears repeating! The rape issue is a difficult one, but you're certainly correct with the "unrape" concept.
I'd like to take credit, but it actually comes from an old joke about the difference between pregnant women and light bulbs.
That said, there are women who have aborted the children conceived in rape who will tell you their unfortunate discovery. It seems that two wrongs, indeed, do not make a right.
However, I think three rights make a left.
Shalom.
No, what I have not done is to allow myself to be drawn into a debate on the terms that those who profit from abortion would like to frame.
I suggest that the procedure known as abortion be made illegal. Right now, a physician can set up a clinic and advise women that an abortion medicaly necessary.
And the doctor can also perform (for a fee) an abortion.
You simply outlaw the procedure.
It is the doctor who performs the abortion that is charged. Not the woman
The effect of this law would be to close and shutter all the abortion clinic around the land.
Is it that YOU would like to have a law that would make women liable for a charge of murder?
Fine, if that is YOUR position.
It is not mine.
Indeed they have. Herewith, a few:
When was abortion first suspected as a cause?
Dr. M. C. Pike, at the University of Southern California in l981, published the first serious scientific study that demonstrated a direct association of induced abortion with later breast cancer. He studied 163 women who developed breast cancer before age 33, and compared them with 272 controls. He showed that if a woman had aborted her first pregnancy, her chance for developing breast cancer was increased by a factor of 2.4 times. Pike MC, Henderson BE, Casagrande JT, Rosario I, Gray CE (1981) Brit. J. Cancer, 43:726.
Give me other definitive studies.
Certainly one of the definitive studies was by H. L. Howe. Her study was done in upstate New York using official statistics from the New York State Health Department. This was an excellent study by epidemiologic standards and was not subject to any kind of recall memory bias from people asked in questionnaires. It used only hard data. She investigated all the women in this area who developed breast cancer under age 40 and checked to see whether or not they had had abortions. The conclusion was that women who had aborted their first pregnancy had a 1.7 times increased risk of breast cancer. Those who had gone on to abort their second and/or third pregnancy had a 4.0 times increased risk. Howe HL, Senie RT, Bzduch H, Herzfeld P (1989) et al., Int. J. Epidemiol. 18:3004.
Another was in Washington State: Few studies on this issue receive media attention. This went worldwide and broke the defacto embargo on reporting the abortionbreast cancer link. Janet Daling did a very professional study that could not be discounted. It found:
- An induced abortion raises a woman’s chance of getting breast cancer before age 45 by 50%. If done before age 18, it increases 150%; if after age 30, it’s up 110%.
- A woman with a family member with breast cancer who had her first abortion after 30 years increased her risk 270%.
- All 12 women in the study with a family history of breast cancer, who aborted before age 18 — all 12 — got breast cancer before age 45. J. Daling, Risk of Breast Cancer Among Young Women, J. Nat. Ca. Inst., Vol. 86, No. 21, 11/2/94, pg. 1584
Other studies done since then include: Greece: An overall increased risk of 51% was reported in women who had abortions, compared to those who did not. It involved 850 patients in Athens. L. Lipworth, Int. J. of Cancer, April ’95 U.S.A.:
A statistically significant increased risk of 23% of breast cancer was shown to be attributable to induced abortion. For women over 60 years, the risk was 80%. P. Newcomb et al., Preg. Termination & Risk of Breast Cancer, JAMA 1/24/96, Vol. 275, No. 4, pg. 283
For a thorough explanation of the Newcomb study above, see Natl. RTL News, 2/6/96, by J. Brind. Paris: "Having at least two abortions if associated with an increased breast cancer risk" of 2.1 times. N. Andrieu, Role of Genetic & Repro. Factors in Br. Ca., Genetic Spidem. 11 (3): 285, 1994
There are, in addition, many competent studies done in the last 20 years which also confirm this linkage. See: Before You Choose, The Link Between Abortion & Breast Cancer; And: Legalized Abortion and the Sudden Increase of Breast Cancer, both by Scott Somerville, P.O. Box 159, Paeonian Springs, VA 22129.
These are comprehensive analyses citing 74 studies.
Source: Why Can't We Love Them Both? by Doctor and Mrs. J. C. Willke
Not round these parts. ;-)
SD
Sorry, Pappy. Those "drugs" are chemical abortifacients. The fact that a pharmacist rather than a surgeon kills a baby, doesn't make it any more right.
SD
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