From: garvin+@cs.cmu.edu (Susan Garvin)
Subject: Re: THE REAL LOWDOWN ON "CLOT," "CLUMP OF CELLS," AND "FETUS"
Date: Sun, 26 Jul 92 16:06:54 GMT
Organization: School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon
Keywords: From: decay@

In article <1992Jul24.010404.11824@cc.uow.edu.au> nyikos@cc.uow.edu.au (peter nyikos) writes:
#
#Planned parenthood "educational" materials which go into the details
#of abortion will typically show a simplified picture of the chorionic
#sac [related term: chorionic villi sampling], a structure enclosing
#the amniotic sac and, with it, the embryo/fetus.  To the untrained
#eye, the chorionic sac really does look like a formless "mass of tissue"
#or "clump of cells".  In reality, it is one of the most marvelous
#structures in nature, part of it evolving into the placenta at the end
#of the first trimester and beginning of second trimester.
#
#The "educational" materials do not label it "chorionic sac" [nor "chorion,"
#a roughly synonymous word]. To do so would be to invite such questions
#as "What's a chorion?" and "Where's the fetus?"
#
#No.  They label it a fetus.

Since you do not specify which education materials these are,
it is impossible for anyone to check your claims.  Were you
purposefully vague?

#This falls somewhat short of fraud in the narrow legal sense, despite
#the fact that it is so obviously self-serving. [Planned Parenthood
#is the biggest single provider of abortions in the United States.]
#After all, someone pointing to a locked trunk could hardly be said
#to commit fraud if he said, "That's Houdini," if Houdini really is
#inside.  It is a strange way of putting things, but you can't call
#that fraud.
#
#But in a broader moral sense, it is extremely dishonest and crassly
#preys on the ignorance of most laymen [including many pro-lifers, who
#understandably are more concerned with the developing human being 
#inside] about the very existence of the chorionic sac.
#
#{Query: is there a sex education course anywhere in the USA that teaches
#students about the chorionic sac, showing pictures of it from the 
#outside, not just cutaway views of the developing human being within?}
#
#A ghastly example of this deception occurs right at the end of *Life*
#magazine cover article on Operation Rescue.  A nurse working for a 
#targeted clinic complains to *Life* reporters about the whole big fuss,
#then unwraps "a dark, peanut-sized object looking like a blood clot,"
#telling reporters, "This is an abortion."  The reporters straightfor-
#wardly identify this object as a fetus.
#
#[I am relying on memory here, so these quotes may not be exact.  I
#hereby grant anyone reading this permission to re-post my article
#with the relevant passage from *Life* inserted here, along with any
#letters to the editor (if any) that refer to this scene.]
#
#There is a double deception involved here.  Induced abortion, at the 
#stage represented by this partly desiccated chorion-cum-contents,
#employs a suction curette which tears the chorion and the embryo/fetus
#apart, vacuuming the remains into a jar.  So badly is the fetus 
#mangled that brain tissue usable in transplants only can be found in 
#less than 10% of these abortions.

What is your source for this claim?

#What the nurse showed the reporters was almost surely the result of
#a spontaneous abortion, more commonly known as a miscarriage.  In these,
#the resilient chorionic sac is usually expelled whole, its contents intact.

This is an unsupported guess, as well.

It was a spontaneous abortion which just happened to occur at
a clinic, Nyikos?

#[Can I say "always" here instead of "usually" in first trimester 
#miscarriages? can readers supply me with authoritative information?]

Most people find the "authoritative information" before making
claims, Nyikos, rather than hypothesizing about the facts and
then asking others to do their research.

#Hardly anyone would think to open the sac up, much less actually
#go through with it.

I ask you to prove this, as well.

#In this case too, the deception stops short of fraud in the legal
#sense, thanks to these two disparate meanings of "abortion."
#But I find it ironic that the same article took the trouble to state
#that the fetus handled by the Buffalo minister at the barricades was
#the result of a miscarriage rather than abortion.  [Or did it 
#qualify it by saying "probably"? Again, I am workilng  from memory.
#The University of Wollongong Library does not subscribe to *Life*]
#Of course, the essential point of the minister's demonstration was
#that this is what is killed in late-term abortions; the minister
#never claimed the "dead baby" was the result of an induced abortion.
#No dishonesty, let alone fraud, involved here.

"...'I want you to meet my friend Baby Tia,' Schenck says, meaning
to horrify them, to make them listen to words they don't want to
hear.  'A beautiful little girl who was aborted.'
...[scuffle over fetus deleted]
     A county coroner, who later examines it, decides the fetus
is a stillborn, at least 20 weeks old.  But Schenck and his
twin brother Paul, who were raised Jewish and are now ministers 
in an evangelical church in a Buffalo suburb, insist the fetus was
aborted. ..."

I would argue that the phrase "insist the fetus was aborted", when
following the coroner's determination of a stillbirth, means
that the the ministers were claiming that the fetus was the
result of an induced abortion, if we restricted the source
to just the "Life" article.  

From "The Buffalo News" (4-25-92) - 
     "Tia, the fetus.  The Re. Paul H. Schenck shocked reporters
Monday, when he introduced the fetus at a news conference.
     'This is Tia,' he said.  'She is less than 25 weeks in
her development. ... [sic]  She is a primary victim of the abortion
holocaust.'"

It sounds as if you have a different definition of dishonesty for
each side of the abortion debate, Nyikos.  Your easy acceptance
of the Schencks' deception casts a rather poor light on the
first part of your article.


[More bizarre musings deleted]

#At the end I will put the Biblical quote, "I have set before you
#death and life.  Choose life."  Can anyone supply the reference?

I guess Holtsinger will withdraw his support of you now, given
his opposition to revealing the truth that many anti-abortion
people insist on bringing religion in to this debate.

Susan