From: cjburke@gw.syr.ge.com
Newsgroups: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh
Subject: Re: rights and responsibilities
Date: 10 Dec 92 12:58:47 -0500
Distribution: world
Organization: General Electric Co., Syracuse, NY

In article <1992Dec4.102135.2480@wdl.loral.com>, bard@cutter.ssd.loral.com (J H Woodyatt) writes:
> In article <168B2E845.VAAIRP@UKCC.UKY.EDU>, VAAIRP@UKCC.UKY.EDU writes:
> #   * A waiting period should be enacted.  I dare somebody to give me a
> #     GOOD reason why this should not happen.
> 
> I've been dared.  Well, maybe not personally.
> 
> Here goes:
> 
> 	1)  Some women must travel long distances to have an abortion.
> 	    For many of them, a waiting period adds extra time off
> 	    work and added expense for lodging during the waiting
> 	    period. 
Hold on here.  Why must we make the assumption that abortion must take
place in a special clinic?  Why must we have a special location for one
type of medical procedure?  That is what we are talking about here, as
I have stated before.  I will grant you that hospitals can be few and
far between, but there is usually a doctor within *reasonable* distances.
Removing abortion from the domain of the family planning clinics would 
also reduce the ability of the *terrorists and fanatics* to discern who
is entering for abortion, and who is entering for other reasons.
> 
> 	2)  It would invite terrorists and fanatics to hound and
> 	    harass (or worse) women between the initial appointment
> 	    and the end of the waiting period.
> 
> 	3)  It's unnecessary.  Women already have plenty of time to
> 	    make their choice.  Why require women who have already
> 	    made up their minds to wait?

> 
> What is the reasoning behind waiting periods? Simple: make a woman
> make two trips to the clinic and the ones who are too poor pay the
> added expense won't get abortions, and those who do make the extra
> effort can be targeted by hit-squads of `counselors' while they're
> waiting.

WRONG WRONG WRONG!  Because of the media and activists, many of our 
uneducated, poorer people think their only alternative is abortion.
Let them hear all of the alternatives (not just the ones that the 
*AHEM* anti-censorship *AHEM* liberals want them to hear.  

> 
> Is that *really* how you want to go about reducing the number of
> abortions?
> 
> #   * Although I wouldn't go as far as requiring parental notification
> #     for minors, I might be talked into a family notification requirement,
> #     i.e. grandparents included.
> 
> What for?  What kind of abortions were you thinking would be less
> likely to occur with such a provision, and why do you think *these*
> abortions are the troublesome ones?

Again, since we are talking about a MEDICAL procedure, parents of minor
children have the right to be notified.  All medical proffesionals that
I know seem to agree that the parents of a minor must be notified when
they receive minor treatment (I am talking hangnails and hemmorhoids here,
from my college experience).  Why shouldn't the parents be notified when 
their child is going to undergo what is essentially outpatient surgery.

I am not talking morals here, I am talking about established medical ethics.

> 
> Here's how you reduce the number of abortions by reducing the demand
> for abortion:
> 
> 	1) Comprehensive sex and reproduction education in the public
> 	   schools.  Not just the in-out mechanics and the
> 	   infant-in-three-easy-steps programs we have now -- frank
> 	   and explicit education about contraception.
> 
> 	2) Public funding (augmenting charity) for contraceptive
> 	   distribution.  Aim at getting condoms, gel, diaphrams, the
> 	   Pill, etc. into the hands of people who want them, but
> 	   find them too difficult to acquire.  Make vasectomies,
> 	   tubal ligations, Norplant and other surgical approaches
> 	   more available.
> 
> 	3) Combine 1) and 2) to get contraceptives into wide use among
> 	   the youngest sexually active members of society.  As long
> 	   as we continue to cling to the vestigial notion that making
> 	   contraception available to unmarried teens encourages
> 	   promiscuity, sexual immorality and devil worship, we will
> 	   fail to make the kind of progress we *can* make in reducing
> 	   the number of abortions performed each year.

Amazing, isn't it?  Not a single mention of abstinence there.

(Sorry, old-fashioned idea just kind of slipped through there.)

Newsgroups: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh