From: eisimps@cie.uoregon.edu (Eileen Simpson)
Subject: Re: Simon Booth comes out pro-choice
Organization: University of Oregon Campus Information Exchange
Distribution: usa
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 92 03:17:19 GMT

In article <1992Oct6.174303.19618@galileo.physics.arizona.edu> krueger@galileo.physics.arizona.edu (Ted Krueger) writes:
>In article <ld3flkINN2i0@spim.mti.sgi.com> mpolen@suntory.mti.sgi.com (Michael Polen) writes:
>>Simon E. Booth) writes:
>>|> 
>>|> II think you understand at least part of what I've been trying to say.
>>|> Perhaps there are valid reason for abortion, although I'm against it.
>>|> But those reasons must be important, and other options should be examined
>>|> as well.
>>|> 

Note to pro-choicers:  When someone makes a statement that says abortion
might be valid in some circumstances, and you jump it as a defection from
the right to life camp, and generally hit people with "you've abandoned
your position," you encourage extremism and discourage movement and give
and take.  I think that is a bad idea.

>This is such crap.  Perhaps you feel this way, but the leaders of 
>NOW and NARAL certainly do not.  Please watch next time any state 
>tries to enact things like parental notification or waiting periods 
>which just might have the chance of reducing the numbers of abortions.
>Ted

The problem with this statement is that it does not address reducing
pregnancies in the first place.  If you reduce *only* reduce abortions in
the case of teens then you have high risk pregnancies in children who
cannot care for the children they are birthing.  This is crazy.  

I am a youth advisor for a large local church.  I deal with all sorts of
things, including young people of good family who fear they are pg or have
gotten someone that way.  Parental notification sounded good to me because
I am also the mother of a teen. But as I have worked with young people I
really fear they will wind up maimed or dead if such laws are enacted.  It
is a poor solution for the real problem:  too much adolescent sexual
activity in the context of totally inadequate birth control.

If the RTL movement devoted half its energy to genuinely dealing with
prevention of teen pregnancy, it would be able to cut abortions far more
effectively and safely.  If all those people who lay down in front of
clinics spent their time with teens who need someone to talk to and care
about them, they would save many more "lives" born and unborn than they do
when they pull their stunts.  The problem is that the work on the real need
is not glamourous nor do the tv cameras come to watch.  You just be there
for kids and help them grow to be adults.

As for "waiting periods," these cut abortions only by making it more
difficult to have the procedure.  The idea that women need to wait and
think before they have an abortion because they may not know what they are
doing is a male conceit that does not deserve to be dignified in law.

Just a note:  an old friend of mine commented the other day that he was no
longer supporting right to life--he is currently prosecuting another child
abuse death case where the 18 month old  was swung like a golf club into a
blunt object that severed his intestine. Both legs were broken.  The child
lay in his crib for about 48 hours after the fatal incident, dieing, and no
one got him medical care.  The parents were high on crack at the time.  He
says he has seen "Silent Scream" but he has also seen too many autopsy
photos of dead toddlers and too many termination of parental rights cases
where the post-born child has been destroyed.  He says he is not pro-choice
either, tho:  he wants to be able to tell some people they must abort.

There are worse things than abortion.  Go to a child abuse trial sometime.
The screams of these kids are not silent.



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