Surprise, Mom: I'm Anti-Abortion

New York Times ^ | 3/30/03 | ELIZABETH HAYT

[madprof98]

.

FOR her high school class in persuasive speech, Afton Dahl, 16, chose to present an argument that abortion should be illegal. She graphically described the details of various abortion techniques, including facts about fetal heart development.

"The baby's heartbeat starts at around 12 to 18 days, so it's murder to kill someone with a heartbeat," Miss Dahl said recently, recalling the argument she used in class in January. "I don't believe in abortion under any circumstances, including rape. I think it would be better to overturn Roe v. Wade."

Miss Dahl, a sophomore, attends Red Wing High School in Red Wing, Minn., a small city that is the home of Red Wing shoes and a town where a majority voted for Al Gore for president. Miss Dahl's abortion views are not something she learned from her parents: her mother, Fran Dahl, 47, maintains that abortion should be a woman's choice.

"Nowadays kids don't grow up knowing or being aware of what was going on when abortion was illegal," said Ms. Dahl, a former nurse. "It's not a choice that I would have taken personally, but for the future of women I want to see the right to an abortion maintained."

This contrast between mother and teenage daughter illustrates a trend noted in polls: that teenagers and college-age Americans are more conservative about abortion rights than their counterparts were a generation ago. Many people old enough to have teenage children and who equate youth with liberal social opinions on topics like gay rights and the use of marijuana for medical purposes have been surprised at this discovery. Miss Dahl was one of numerous students in her class who chose to make speeches about abortion, and most took the anti-abortion side.

"I was shocked that there were that many students who felt strong enough and confident enough to speak about being pro-life," said Nina Verin, a parent of another student in the class (whose oral argument was about war in Iraq). "The people I associate with in town are pro-choice, so I'm troubled — where do these kids come from?"

A study of American college freshmen shows that support for abortion rights has been dropping since the early 1990's: 54 percent of 282,549 students polled at 437 schools last fall by the University of California at Los Angeles agreed that abortion should be legal. The figure was down from 67 percent a decade earlier. A New York Times/CBS News poll in January found that among people 18 to 29, the share who agree that abortion should be generally available to those who want it was 39 percent, down from 48 percent in 1993.

"Abortion isn't a rights issue — it's become for increasing numbers of young people a moral, ethical issue," said Henry Brady, a professor of political science and public policy at Berkeley who has taken surveys in this area. "They haven't faced a situation where they couldn't get an abortion." Experts offer a number of reasons why young people today seem to favor stricter abortion laws than their parents did at the same age. They include the decline in teenage pregnancy over the last 10 years, which has reduced the demand for abortion. They also cite society's greater acceptance of single parenthood; the spread of ultrasound technology, which has made the fetus seem more human; and the easing of the stigma once attached to giving up a child for adoption.

Ten to 15 years ago, said Frances Kissling, president of Catholics for a Free Choice, an abortion-rights group, adoption was generally portrayed as an effort to find parents for needy children. Now, she said, that has changed — infertile couples are desperately seeking children.

"Young people are idealistic," Ms. Kissling said. "They think sacrifice is a good thing, particularly conservative Christian kids. One of the main sacrifices you can give is the gift of a child to a deserving couple."

The most commonly cited reason for the increasingly conservative views of young people is their receptiveness to the way anti-abortion campaigners have reframed the national debate on the contentious topic, shifting the emphasis from a woman's rights to the rights of the fetus.

Abortion opponents celebrated on March 13 when the Senate passed a ban on a procedure that its critics call partial-birth abortion; the bill is expected to pass the House quickly and be signed by President Bush, and to immediately face a court challenge. Even though the procedure is used in only a tiny fraction of cases, graphic descriptions of it since the mid-90's, and even the name its foes have given it (doctors call it dilation and extraction), have had an impact on young people.

"There's been so much media attention over the last seven to eight years on partial-birth abortion, we shouldn't be surprised that some of it has had an effect on 12-to-14-year-olds, and it is a public relations coup for the National Right to Life Committee," said David J. Garrow, a legal historian at Emory University who has focused on reproductive rights.

Britni Hoffbeck, another speech student at Red Wing High who opposes abortion, and who says her views are more conservative than those of her parents, put her argument succinctly: "It's more about the baby's rights than the woman's rights."

Tom Cosgrove, a communications consultant in Cambridge, Mass., who has researched the views of young people for national abortion-rights groups, said: "All the restrictions that the right-to-life movement has imposed young people look at and say, `They're a good thing, because it's meant to protect a young woman's health.' They don't want the label of pro-choice. The pro-life side figured out a long time ago that this is about children, whereas the pro-choice movement is focused on women and choice."

Some young people who oppose abortion, and who were born after the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973 declared that were is a constitutional right to abortion, have adopted a new rhetoric. One of them is Kelly Kroll, a junior at Boston College and president of American Collegians for Life, who says she is a "survivor of the abortion holocaust" because she was adopted. "Myself and my classmates have never known a world in which abortion wasn't legalized," she said. "We've realized that any one of us could have been aborted. When I talk about being a survivor of abortion, I am talking about it from a personal place."

Margaret Watson, a junior at Rutgers University who recently started an abortion rights group on campus, RU Choice, said that because the historical circumstances surrounding Roe v. Wade are distant, her peers take the right to an abortion for granted.

"For my generation, we have always grown up knowing we could have an abortion," she said. "I look at being pro-choice as being American, to have free will. I would hope that mothers do decide to keep their babies, but I just want women to be able to make up their own minds."

One reason there may be less support for abortion among the young is that they are less likely to imagine having to consider an abortion, because teenage pregnancy rates are down: while 4 out of 10 girls become pregnant, that is a 21 percent decrease since 1990, according to the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy.

Experts attribute the decline to greater awareness of AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases, which has led young people to become more cautious about sex. Studies show that fewer high school students engage in sexual intercourse, and that contraceptive use is up.

"There are better contraceptives — RU-486, the morning-after pill — along with an emphasis on sex ed, abstinence and slogans like, `Not me, Not now,' " said a sophomore at Hunter College High School in Manhattan whose father did not want her to be identified. "Abortion isn't such an issue, because getting pregnant isn't such a prevalent problem among my peers."

Some parents trace their teenagers' anti-abortion views to sexuality education programs that stress abstinence as the only way to prevent pregnancy and disease, and in the process sometimes demonize abortion. Since 1996 the federal government has budgeted $50 million annually to "abstinence only till marriage" programs, which are taught in 35 percent of public schools in the country, according to the Alan Guttmacher Institute, a nonprofit group affiliated with Planned Parenthood.

Renee Walker gave permission for her seventh-grade son to participate in such a program last fall in his public school in Concord, Calif. But she said she became alarmed when, reviewing his class notes, she found a list of the disadvantages of abortion, including the circled words "killing a baby." He said he had been told abortion "tears the arms and legs off."

Ms. Walker sent a letter of complaint to officials of the school district, Mount Diablo Unified School District, expressing her surprise that the abstinence curriculum had been created by First Resort, a Christian anti-abortion and pregnancy counseling group. "Most parents are busy, doing laundry, running around like me, and we're trusting the schools to reflect public policy," she said. "I had an anti-choice critter jump out of my son's backpack and was running around my house."

The district agreed with Ms. Walker that the First Resort program was overly graphic, a schools spokeswoman said. It asked for, and got, modifications, she said.

If today's teenagers and young adults maintain their views on abortion into older adulthood, and if succeeding waves of students are also conservative, the balance could tip somewhat in the America's long-running abortion war, some experts speculate.

It's unclear whether the shift will ever be substantial enough to change the centrist position of the majority of Americans of all ages: that abortion should be legal, but with restrictions. In Red Wing, the certainty of the youthful opinions of the students reminded their speech-lcass teacher, Jillynne Raymond, of an earlier generation's certainty — her own.

"Teenagers have strong opinions," Ms. Raymond, 41, said. "It's no different than the 70's when I was a teenager, but the difference is that the majority of speeches then were pro-choice. I wanted the right to an abortion as a woman. The focus then was not having the government tell me what to do with my body.

"Today," she said of her students, "the majority is pro-life."

[MississippiMan]

I'm stunned that it's in the NYT, but hey, I'll take it. The only thing that's ever been needed to sway the abortion argument is a simple discussion of straight facts, facts that are virtually NEVER allowed to be known by the media. The methods. The reality behind the ludicrous claims of the pro-abortioners, etc.

MM

[Salvation]

What abortion looks like

[hocndoc]

"" I suspect more women are dying from them now than did pre-Roe. ""

Not officially. But the records the states keep aren't reliable, at all for good comparisons.

And, all maternal deaths dropped significantly in the last 40 years, because of improvements in antibiotics, surgery and all sorts of medical treatments.

Now, if we could ever compare numbers of complications, that would be interesting. After 15 weeks pregnancy, abortion is statistically less safe for the mother than carrying the child to term.

[nicollo]

Thanks. My little girl is now 13 and not so little anymore (I'm trying to keep her as little as a teenage can be...). Thankfully, my mother is the best grandmother a little girl and her little brother could ask for.

I hope never have to tell that story to my daughter. As with me, she may not make all the best choices in life, but I will make sure she makes good on the ones that count.

[hocndoc]

Thanks for the ping.

(It wasn't possible for the NYT to make this a negative article, even though I suspect they tried. *FReepers,* on the other hand, somehow have managed to kick up a fuss. Oh well,,,,)

[hocndoc]

God bless you, your kids, and your mother.

[FirstTomato]

In my journey from being pro-abortion to pro-life, I had done a lot of research on abortion, and looked at a lot of images. But those images of murdered children still break my heart in two.

I do believe that education is the key to getting more people to be pro-life. Most people are good, but they have been hood-winked by a leftist feminist cabala into believing that abortion is a "pro-women's rights" thing. Nothing could be further from the truth, of course. As we knowm, abortion is the antithesis of being humane, it is in direct contradiction to everything that a woman should stand for.

When people understand the trauma that these children go through, when they see the photos, understand the pain, then that is the beginning of change. The pro-life epiphany will come to most individuals, if enough information is given.

So, keep up the good work. Those photos are worth a million words--so I will just stop writing and encourage everyone who is still pro-abortion, who may be reading this, to dare to take a look.

[supercat]

Not officially. But the records the states keep aren't reliable, at all for good comparisons.

I guess I find it surprising that more women aren't dying, since the number of yearly abortions has increased something like a hundredfold, hasn't it?

[hocndoc]

The numbers have increased for both abortions and, probably, for maternal deaths. But, there is no way of knowing until we have better counts and accountability.
At least this year, the nation's standardized death certificate, for the first time, requires reporting whether or not a woman wa pregnant at death or in the last year. The statistics should get a little more reliable.

[cpforlife.org]

Great thread BUMP!

[finnman69]

For reference, this was located on the front page of the STYLE section (Sunday's only). As if its stylish or a fad to be pro-life.

[Aquinasfan]

the spread of ultrasound technology, which has made the fetus seem more human;

Anyone want to guess whether the author aborted something that seemed to be human at some time in her life?

[Aquinasfan]

I am the MOTHER of a SEVERELY mentally and physically disabled child who neither walks nor talks nor feeds herself and who still wears diapers at 18 years of age...and I am STILL PRO-LIFE!

I admire you. God bless you!

My sister-in-law is in a similar situation with her 12-year-old. I have some idea of how difficult it can be.

[Aquinasfan]

I was. When I refused to abort my 1st child, my mother disowned me.

Wow. When I used to do sidewalk prayer vigils outside of Planned Infanticide in Brookline, more often than not a crying teenage girl was being led in by her mother. Thank God you made the right decision.

[IrishRainy]

Do you have a link for these stats?

Actually, I had heard similar figures a few years ago but can't remember where, so in order to get the most accurate stats I could, I used Google. Put in "CDC abortion deaths 1972," etc. These stats were from the CDC website, and they actually state that reporting abortion deaths is not mandatory in every state, so the figures are pry an under-representation.

[votelife]

Here is a recent email I sent to W.

Dear President Bush, With the Surpeme Court session getting ready to close, it may well be time for perhaps the most important domestic decision of your presidency: the appointment of a Supreme Court Justice(s). The main reason why I supported you in 2000 and why I wanted Daschle out of power in 02 (and 04) has to do with the courts. I want America courts to interpret law, not write law. During your presidential campaign you said Thomas and Scalia were your two model justices. Those are excellent models. The High Court needs more like them. Clarence Thomas recently said to students that the tough cases were when what he wanted to do was different from what the law said. And he goes by the law. This should be a model philosophy for our justices. Your father, President Bush lost his reelection campaign for 3 main reasosn, as far as I can see. 1. he broke the no new taxes pledge 2. David Souter 3. Clinton convinced people we were in a Bush recession (which we had already come out of by the time Clinton was getting sworn in)

I urge you to learn from all three of these: 1. on taxes, you're doing great. Awesome job on the tax cut. 2. good job so far on judicial appointments. I want to see more of a fight for Estrada, Owen, and Pickering, but I commend you on your nominations. 3. by staying engaged in the economic debate you'll serve yourself well

I have been thoroughly impressed with your handling of al Queida, Iraq, and terrorism. You have inspired confidence and have shown great leadership.

But I want to remind you that your Supreme Court pick(s) will be with us LONG after you have departed office. I urge you to avoid the tempation to find a "compromise" pick. Go for a Scalia or Thomas. Don't go for an O'Connor or Kennedy. To be specific, get someone who is pro-life. Roe v Wade is one of the worst court decisions I know of, and it's the perfect example of unrestrained judicial power.

I know the temptation will be tremendous on you to nominate a moderate. But remember who your true supporters are. I am not a important leader or politician. I am "simply" a citizen who has been an enthusiatic supporter of you. I am willing to accept compromise in many areas of government but I will watch your Court nomiantions extremely closely. What the Senate Dems are doing right now is disgusting, but as the President you have the bully pulpit to stop it. Democrats will back down if you turn up serious heat on them.

Moreover, I think public opinion is shifting towards the pro-life position. Dems will want you to nominate a moderate, but almost all will vote against you anyways. Pro-choice Repubs will likely still vote for you if you nominate a Scalia, after all, you campaigned on it. So Mr. President, I urge you to stick with your campaign statements and nominate justices who believe in judicial restraint, like Scalia and Thomas.

Happy Memorial Day and may God bless you and your family.

[votelife]

Dear President Bush,
With the Surpeme Court session getting ready to close, it may well be time for perhaps the most important domestic decision of your presidency: the appointment of a Supreme Court Justice(s). The main reason why I supported you in 2000 and why I wanted Daschle out of power in 02 (and 04) has to do with the courts. I want America courts to interpret law, not write law. During your presidential campaign you said Thomas and Scalia were your two model justices. Those are excellent models. The High Court needs more like them. Clarence Thomas recently said to students that the tough cases were when what he wanted to do was different from what the law said. And he goes by the law. This should be a model philosophy for our justices. Your father, President Bush lost his reelection campaign for 3 main reasosn, as far as I can see. 1. he broke the no new taxes pledge 2. David Souter 3. Clinton convinced people we were in a Bush recession (which we had already come out of by the time Clinton was getting sworn in)

I urge you to learn from all three of these: 1. on taxes, you're doing great. Awesome job on the tax cut. 2. good job so far on judicial appointments. I want to see more of a fight for Estrada, Owen, and Pickering, but I commend you on your nominations. 3. by staying engaged in the economic debate you'll serve yourself well

I have been thoroughly impressed with your handling of al Queida, Iraq, and terrorism. You have inspired confidence and have shown great leadership.

But I want to remind you that your Supreme Court pick(s) will be with us LONG after you have departed office. I urge you to avoid the tempation to find a "compromise" pick. Go for a Scalia or Thomas. Don't go for an O'Connor or Kennedy. To be specific, get someone who is pro-life. Roe v Wade is one of the worst court decisions I know of, and it's the perfect example of unrestrained judicial power.

I know the temptation will be tremendous on you to nominate a moderate. But remember who your true supporters are. I am not a important leader or politician. I am "simply" a citizen who has been an enthusiatic supporter of you. I am willing to accept compromise in many areas of government but I will watch your Court nomiantions extremely closely. What the Senate Dems are doing right now is disgusting, but as the President you have the bully pulpit to stop it. Democrats will back down if you turn up serious heat on them.

Moreover, I think public opinion is shifting towards the pro-life position. Dems will want you to nominate a moderate, but almost all will vote against you anyways. Pro-choice Repubs will likely still vote for you if you nominate a Scalia, after all, you campaigned on it. So Mr. President, I urge you to stick with your campaign statements and nominate justices who believe in judicial restraint, like Scalia and Thomas.

Happy Memorial Day and may God bless you and your family.

[TheCookMan]

I was shocked that there were that many students who felt strong enough and confident enough to speak about being pro-life," said Nina Verin, a parent of another student in the class (whose oral argument was about war in Iraq). "The people I associate with in town are pro-choice, so I'm troubled — where do these kids come from?"

Here's where they come from: YOU INADVERTADELY CREATED THEM.

These people study history. They know that the 60's didn't just happen, people created it. Hence, they know that the only way to undo the damage is to fight back, and fight back hard.

Thus says Cook.

[backhoe]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/921369/posts

Bringing Good Things to Life (ULTRASOUND)
Citizen magazine ^ | June 2003 | Karla Dial

Ever since I heard of this new technology, I've maintained that it is the Stealth Bomber that is going to zoom in under the pro-death crowd's radar and nuke them... once a woman sees what is really in her womb, it ceases to be a "tissue mass" and becomes... a baby. Her baby.

Silent Scream made an impact on those few who saw it.

Fetal Psychology wasn't even a blip.

 

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/921349/posts

The War Over Fetal Rights
MSNBC.COM ^ | 6/1/03 | Debra Rosenberg

Is this a person?

 

 

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/921231/posts

Treating the Tiniest (pro-life issue benefits from advances in fetal surgery)
NEWSWEEK ^ | June 9 issue | Claudia Kalb

 

 

 

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/921551/posts

Gynomythology: Vox Day examines feminism's favorite fairy tales
WorldNetDaily.com ^ | Monday, June 2, 2003 | Vox Day

 

 

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/921592/posts?page=2#2

POLL: FETUSES ARE PEOPLE, TOO
New York Post ^ | 6/02/03 | Cynthia R. Fagen

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/930870/posts

Hometown Heroes: Stirring the Pot (Pro-life moms take on The Pampered Chef)
Citizen Magazine ^ | June 2003 | Candi Cushman

Pro-Life 'Chefs' Exiting the Pampered Life
The Billionaire Bomb [Just look who's funding anti-population programs.]

 

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/931219/posts

The Fully Informed Mother's Act
Self | 6/18/03 | Blood of Tyrants

[AnalogReigns]

It's because 1 out of 4 of the under-30 generation was aborted.

The blood of over 40,000,000 Americans cries out...