From: bard@cutter.ssd.loral.com (J H Woodyatt)
Subject: Re: ALL ARGUMENTS FOR PRO-CHOICE REFUTED HERE!!!!!
Reply-To: bard@cutter.ssd.loral.com
Organization: Abiogenesis 4 Less
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1992 20:13:29 GMT


I would like to check Mx. Rink's references.  However, some of them
are not noted.  I am posting my request rather than mailing it to
him/her personally because I'd like help checking them.  When Mx. Rink
provides me with references to check I will distribute them to any
other volunteers to choose among for the purposes of helping me check
them.

ss1@kepler.unh.edu (The Rink) writes:
# 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."

I require a reference for this quote.

# 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."

Which translation is this?

# 2.  In the case of rape.
[...]
# 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."

I require a reference for this quote.

[...]
# 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.

I require a reference for this statistic.

# 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, [...]

I require a reference for this, and support for the allegation that
this is a misrepresentation.

# 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.

I require a reference for this statistic.

# 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.

I require a reference for this statistic, and quotes to support the
assertion.

# 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."

Where and when was this published?

[...]
# 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.

I require a reference for this.

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

I require a reference for this.

# 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.

I require a reference for this.

# 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."

What date was this published in the NYT?

#                                                             By 1986, abuse
# cases had risen to 2.1 million yearly, as reported by the National Center for
# Child Abuse and Neglect.

I require a reference for this statistic.

# 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.

I require a reference for this.

#                                                         Sociologist Arthur
# Shostak found that three out of four male respondents had persistent day and
# night dreams about "the child that never was."

I require a reference for this.

#                                                 And Linda Bird Franke has
# written:  "In my research, almost every relationship between single people
# broke up either before or after the abortion."

I require a refernce for this quote.

# 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."

I require a reference for this quote.

# 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.

I require a reference for this quote.

# 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).

Where was this published?

# 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).

I require further information.  Is this a thesis or a dissertation?
Where was this published?

# 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."

I do *not* require a reference for this quote.  I shall simply ignore it.

# 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."

I require references for all these quotes.

# 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."

I require more information.  Where and precisely when was this
published? 

#  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.

I require substantiation of this claim, with references I can check.

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

I need a reference for all of the above observations.
 
[...]

# 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).

Where and when were these published?

[...]

# 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."

I require a reference for this article.

#   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."

Precisely when was this published, and what is the full name of the
journal? 

#                                                 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."

Ditto.

# 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.

This is simply untrue.  Substantiation for this has been posted in
this forum recently.

#            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.

I require references for all of these assertions.

# 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).

I require a reference for publication of this data.

# 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. 

I require a reference for this assertion.

[...]

# 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. 

I require a reference for this statistic.

# Cumulatively, since legalization of abortion on demand, our
# economic loss exceeds $1 trillion. 

I require a reference for this statistic.

# 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.

I require references for all of these assertions.

# 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."

I require a reference for this quote.

-- 
J H Woodyatt (a.k.a. Dr. Strychnine)
Space Systems/Loral

Help keep Las Vegas clean.  Eat your kill.