From: ss1@kepler.unh.edu (The Rink)
Subject: ALL ARGUMENTS FOR PRO-CHOICE REFUTED HERE!!!!!
Organization: Turkey Hall
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1992 02:30:10 GMT

The following is an article that refutes all arguments that justify abortion.

These 19 arguments are refuted:

	 1.  A woman should have a choice.
	 2.  The case of rape.
	 3.  To reduce illegal back-alley abortions.
	 4.  To prevent child abuse.
	 5.  To save relationships.
	 6.  A woman has a "right" to control her own body.
	 7.  To prevent possible suicide.
	 8.  To relieve stress.
	 9.  To protect a woman's mental health.
	10.  To relieve women of unwanted pregnancies.
	11.  To fetus is mere tissue or only uterine content.
	12.  Abortion is safer than childbirth.
	13.  At least for teenagers, abortion is safer than childbirth.
	14.  Abortion is permitted only in early months of pregnancy.
	15.  A human fetus cannot feel pain.
	16.  The child may be handicapped or deformed.
	17.  To control population and food supply.
	18.  To save welfare (taxpayers') money.
	19.  An unborn child has no rights.

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1.  A woman should have a choice.

Between what options?  To give birth or have her child killed?  The choice
between a live or a dead baby?  When a woman conceives, she becomes a mother,
and abortion cannot terminate her motherhood.  It can only terminate the life
of her child, and she will eventually regret that choice.

Susan Carpenter McMillan has stated:  "As a feminist, I believe strongly in a
woman's right of choice.  But with abortion, we're really talking about the
rights of human beings versus the `right' of an individual to kill another
human being.  We're talking about someone's right to live versus someone's
right to choose death for another person.  We're talking about life versus a
lifestyle."

Deuteronomy 30:19 reminds us:  "I have set before you life and death, the
blessing and the curse.  Choose life then so that you and your descendents may
live."

2.  In the case of rape.

Conception from criminal rape is rare, for several reasons.  Women can conceive
only three days monthly, many use the pill, ovulation is delayed by intense
anguish, the victim may not be of child-bearing age, half of rapists are
sexually dysfunctional, and immediate medical care prevents conception.
[Abortion Questions & Answers, 1985].

Should conception occur, abortion is not advisable.  A child does not deserve
to die for its father's crime, and abortion is likely to be a second traumatic
experience for the victim, complete with memory that she had her child killed.
In the words of M. Uchtman, Director, Suiciders Anonymous:  "We found this
experience [rape] is forgotten, replaced by remembering the abortion, because
it is what they did."

Consider how like rape abortion actually is:  both are violent acts against
innocent victims.  And which woman would the reader respect more, the mother
who aborted her child conceived after rape or the mother who carried her child
to birth with love and courage?

3.  To reduce illegal back-alley abortions.

Prior to legalization, 85-90% of illegal abortions in America were performed by
licensed physicians and not by quacks.

Proponents of abortion, such as Planned Parenthood, misrepresent the number of
deaths from "back-alley clinics" prior to legalization by using estimates of
5,000 to 10,000 deaths annually, whereas the evidence points to only 114 deaths
in 1963, for instance, which "were due to abortions that were criminal, self-
induced, or without legal indications [Child and Family, Winter, 1968]."

The truth is more women are injured by abortion today than ever before, largely
because the number of abortions has risen to over 1.5 million yearly since Roe
vs. Wade (1973).

4.  To prevent child abuse.

Abortion is itself the ultimate form of child abuse and dehumanization, and
contrary to what many Americans assume, children from unplanned pregnancies
represent only 10% or fewer of abuse cases annually in America.  Following
Roe vs. Wade in 1973, the cases of child abuse in America rose 500% by 1982.

Many Americans assume a correlation exists between "unwanted pregnancies" and
child abuse.  Behind their slogan, "Every Child a Wanted Child," Planned
Parenthood kills 100,000 children in their own U.S. clinics annually and then
speaks of having "saved" unwanted children from parental abuse.

The evidence tells a different story.  In her research article, "The Myth:
Unplanned Pregnancies Lead to Child Abuse," Dr. Wanda Franz wrote:  "In every
major child-abuse center, the data collected on families who have been
identified as abusers indicate that the vast majority `wanted' their children
before they were born.  The percentages of `wantedness' ranged from 91 percent
to 96 percent, depending on the study."

That conclusion is supported by the research of Dr. Edward Lenoski of the USC
School of Medicine, Department of Pediatrics (1980), who found that abused
children came from planned pregnancies in over 90% of the more than 600 cases
he studied first hand.  He further noted that, on average, abusing mothers put
on maternity clothes at 114 days into their pregnancies, compared to 171 days
nationally, and that abusing fathers named their sons after themselves 24% of
the time, compared to only 4% nationally.

But while no adverse correlation exists between unwanted children and child
abuse, a correlation does exist between abuse and abortion.  Prominent
researcher and psychiatry professor Dr. Philip Ney has written:  "Our study
indicates that child abuse is more frequent among mothers who have previously
had an abortion.  The mother's guilt or high expectations may be reasons why
there is this high correlation.  A more plausible cause is that because of
guilt, there is antepartum depression that interferes with the mother's ability
to bond."

Emphasizing that acceptance to violence inside the womb has weakened parents'
resistance to violence outside the womb, Dr. Ney has further noted:  (1)
Abortion decreases a parent's instinctual restraint against occasional rage
felt toward a child.  (2) Permissive abortion diminishes restraint against
aggressing the defenseless.  (3) Abortion increases hostility between
generations.  (4) Abortion has devalued life.  (5) Abortion increases guilt
and self-hatred, which the parent releases against the child.  (6) Abortion
increases hostile frustration between sexes, for which the child is the
scapegoat.

After legalizing abortion on demand in 1973, America saw a 500% increase in
child abuse by 1982, from 167,000 cases to 929,000.

Following legalization in New York City, child abuse rose over 300% during the
next three years, while the city's population was declining by 150,000.
Similarly, Hyde Amendment testimony (1980) noted that with fewer and fewer
infants born, America has more and more abuse of children.  Within the same
month, two New York Times headlines read:  "Nation Found Near Point of No
Unwanted Pregnancies" and "Child Abuse Epidemic, HEW Says."  By 1986, abuse
cases had risen to 2.1 million yearly, as reported by the National Center for
Child Abuse and Neglect.

5.  To save relationships.

Researcher Emily Milling studied over 400 couples and found that 70% of their
relationships ended within one month of the abortion.  Sociologist Arthur
Shostak found that three out of four male respondents had persistent day and
night dreams about "the child that never was."  And Linda Bird Franke has
written:  "In my research, almost every relationship between single people
broke up either before or after the abortion."

6.  A woman has a "right" to control her own body.

Yes, but not another individual's body, which the unborn child surely is.  Can
one body be of two blood types and both male and female?  Can it outgrow
itself?  Dr. A. W. Liley, "Father of Fetology," has written:  "Biologically,
at no stage can we subscribe to the view that the fetus is a mere appendage of
the mother.  Genetically, mother and baby are separate individuals from
conception."

As to the legalization of abortion on demand, many legal scholars agree with
Professor John Hart Ely, Dean of Stanford Law School, who has written that
Roe vs. Wade "is not constitutional law and gives almost no sense of an
obligation to try to be."  Once pregnant, a woman best controls her body by
protecting her baby's sanctuary, as much as medical data confirms.

7.  To prevent possible suicide.

Studies have consistently shown abortion to be a primary cause of suicide, and
pregnancy to be a curb against it -- even among women refused abortions prior
to their legalization (research of Suiciders Anonymous, J. Ottosson, Whitlock
and Edwards, M. Sim, Minnesota Maternal Mortality Committee).

8.  To relieve stress.

Dr. Anne Speckhard, researcher into the "long-term manifestations of abortion"
(5-10 years), found that 81% of mothers reported preoccupation with their
aborted child, 54% had nightmares, 35% had perceived visitations with their
child, and 96% felt their abortion had taken a human life (University of
Minnesota, 1985).

As one anonymous person said, who had had an abortion, "I have this dream that
I hear a baby crying and then another.  I go to a closet door and open it.  Out
falls a hundred babies' bodies."

9.  To protect a woman's mental health.

Various studies have shown, as one published in "American Journal of
Psychology," 1971, that "The very women for whom legal abortion is considered
justified on psychiatric grounds are the ones who have the highest risk of
post-abortion psychiatric disorders."  Dr. Sandberg wrote:  "The more severely
ill the patient, the worse is her post-psychiatric state."  Psychiatrist and
medical editor Frank Ayd has added:  "True psychiatric reasons for abortion
have become practically non-existent."

10. To relieve women of unwanted pregnancies:

P. Cameron, et al (Rocky Mountain Psychiatric Association, 1972) reported:
"It is clear that mothers who initially believed their pregnancy to be `the
worse thing that ever happened to them' came to feel about the same degree of
affection for their children as the mothers who were initially `ecstatic'
about their pregnancy."  Abortion clinic counselors often withhold such
evidence.  Neither do they tell patients that mothers customarily regret their
abortions and frequently suffer permanent physical or emotional harm.  In the
final analysis, an "unwanted child" does not exist.  Several American families
desire each child available for adoption.

Beyond that, are we at liberty either to "want" or "not want" our children, as
if they were consumer products, with no inherent value as human beings?

11. The fetus is mere tissue or only uterine in content.

In order to escape the charge of "killing," pro-abortionists try to devalue
the preborn child to something less than a human being.  Quite the contrary,
a preborn child is very human.

The average age of an aborted child is eleven weeks.  Though only three inches
long and weighing once ounce, the child both looks and behaves like the
complete human being he evidently is.

His sole needs are nutrition and time to grow.  His heart has been beating for
two months, his brain active, and all bodily systems are working.  Personality
is present in varied facial expressions, smiles, and eye squints.  Weeks
earlier he began sucking his thumb, making a fist, getting hiccups, waking and
sleeping, and showing off his new fingerprints.  He curls his toes, turns his
head, dreams, tastes, hears, feels, urinates, and has tiny bowel movements.

As fetologists have stressed, the unborn child is very much in charge of his
environment.  He, not his mother, decides the day of his birth by signaling
the placenta.  At that time, electro-chemical impulses inform the uterus that
labor contractions should begin.  The child is ready to become a full-fledged
family member and participating citizen.

12.  Abortion is safer than childbirth.

Medical research considers abortion to be serious surgery (research of Linger,
Cavanaugh, Slumsky, Goodlin, Stipal, McDonald, and Auro, Wright Richardson &
Dickson -- each a separate study).

In the early stages of pregnancy (first three months), childbirth is more than
twice as safe as abortion, not to mention emotional suffering.  After the
first trimester, risk of injury from abortion increases monthly.

13.  At least for teenagers, abortion is safer than childbirth.

No, as shown by M. Bulfin (in "Deaths and Near Deaths with Legal Abortions,"
1975):  "The younger the patient [for abortion] and the further along she is in
her pregnancy, the greater the complication rate."  As for teenage childbirth,
E. E. McAnarney has written (in Fam. Pract. News, 1978) that "Obstetric and
neonatal risks for teenagers over 15 are no greater than for women in their
twenties, provided they receive adequate care."  And J. Durger has added (Fam.
Pract. News, 1978):  "Pregnancy in a very young teenager (12-16) does not
appear to be inherently high risk."

14.  Abortion is permitted only in early months of pregnancy.

Roe vs. Wade and Doe vs. Bolton legalized abortion through nine months of
pregnancy, and America is the only developed nation to allow such late
abortions.  Thousands of American children have been killed after reaching
viability (the age at which they could live outside the mother); and others
have been killed after birth, following hysterotomies (similar to Caesarean
sections).  In cases of birth via hysterotomies, the children are commonly left
to starve in surgical buckets, while some have been drowned, suffocated, or
strangled.  Abortion can never outgrow its pagan heritage.

15.  A human fetus cannot feel pain.

But indeed it can, as memorably confirmed (1984) in a letter to President
Reagan from 26 researchers and two past presidents of the American College of
Obstetrics and Gynecology (see also the research of H. M. I. Liley, of Volman &
Pearson, and of P. Lubeskin).

16.  The child may be handicapped or deformed.

In what way?  Physically?  Spiritually?  In attitude?  Are the rest of us
perfect in mind, body, soul?  Does abortion correct God's mistakes?

17.  To control population and food supply.

Starvation and hunger are largely due to bad governments.  The earth can
sustain several times its present population (research of Conlin Clark,
Constantin Doxiadis, Ansley Coale).  All five billion people living today
could stand within the incorporated area of a major U.S. city, and two percent
of Americans can feed over 25% of the world's current population.  Also,
contrary to Planned Parenthood propaganda, world population growth trends are
measurably declining and too much so in industrialized nations.  Wrote the
_European_Parliament_News_ in 1984:  "The European Parliament is seriously
disturbed by statistics showing rapid decline in the birth rate of the
European Economic Community, which fell from 2.79 in 1964 to 1.68 in 1982."
Save for immigration, America's population would now be declining, due to
abortion and a low birth rate.

18.  To save welfare (taxpayers') money.

To the contrary, abortion is contributing to rising poverty in America.
Professor of economics Dr. Jacqueline R. Kasun, while using only a 4% interest
index, has computed our nation's net economic loss from abortion to be $110
billion yearly.  Cumulatively, since legalization of abortion on demand, our
economic loss exceeds $1 trillion.  _The_Birth_Dearth_, by newsman Ben J.
Wattenberg, offers additional insights.

19.  An unborn child has no rights.

In America an unborn child can inherit property, be named an executor, have a
guardian appointed, sue for injury, file for an injunction, receive Social
Security benefits, sue for a blood transfusion, obtain "equal protection" by
law, and yet be denied the right to save its own life from death by abortion.

U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Sandra Day O'Connor has said:  "Roe vs.
Wade is on a collision course with itself.  It has no basis in law or logic."
-- 
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