Original_To:  BITNET%"CHRISTIA@ASUACAD.BITNET"
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.christia
Date:         Wed, 29 Jul 1992 16:08:00 EST
From:         197850@XAVIER.BITNET
Subject:      RE: Pro and Anti designations.

Date sent:  29-JUL-1992 15:30:13
Fellow CHRISTIAns,

        I like what Dan Grahm had to say about labels for pro-choice versus
pro-lifers.  I thought his point was weell made and I have to agree with him.
Being a "pro-choicer" myself, I find that I am in the middle.  While I try to
understnad the point of pro-lifers, they seem too militant in the ways that
they want to uphold life, thus, I do not want to join them.  Therefore, I guess
I am pro-choice by default, although I don't particularly agree with abortion,
but I think that isn't as horrid as it seems.
        There are several things that have led me to be where I am with this
issue.  1)I have a brother who is two years younger than me.  When he was 15,
he decided he wanted to see what sex was like.  His girlfriend more than pushed
him into it, but he had a healthy curiosity as it was, as most kids that age
do.  So he had sex with this girl.  He didn't tell me about it until
afterwards, and although I hadn't had sex yet, I knew more than he did.  Wehn
he told me about it, I immediately asked him if he used a condom. He said no,
he didn't think that he needed one the first time he did it.  Well, he and the
girl broke up and they didn't see each other anymore after that.  Five months
later, at 2:00a.m., there is a phone call at the house.  I shared a room with
my brother, so when my dad came marching downstairs to our room, I prayed
he wasn't coming after me.  He grabbed my brother out fo bed by the neck and
drug him into the next room.  He proceeded to yell at him for about an hour
about how he just got a call from some drunk kid saying that my brother had
impregnated his friend.  My brother had no idea about any of this.  Two weeks
later, after repeated questioning by my brother, the girl admitted that she was
pregnant.  It was probably into the sixth month by then, so any ideas of
abortion were out of the question.  She eventually had the baby and they went
through a private adoption, so the price of the hospital was taken care of, so
no worries there.  The things that I saw happen, not only to this 15 year old
kid, but to the others involved was what formed my view.  I saw a 15 year old
have to face the responsibility of paying for half of the private tutoring for
this girl, who had to quit the catholic school she was attending until she had
the baby.  I saw my brother cry because they wouldn't let him see the baby
after it was born.  I saw my dad cry after they heard that it was a little
girl because he realized that he would never see his first grandchild.  I saw
this 15 year old girl strugle through a very long and painful labor that a
girl at her age should not go through.  Besides all of this, everyhting turned
out to be all right.  So while lives have gotten back to what they had been
before, I still see my brother cry every July 18 when he thinks about his
little girl's birthday.  He might not have been right to have sex at that age,
but for you parents on the list -- can you imagine having to give up one of
your children?  Do you know what kind of pain that is?
        Secondly, I am a pre-med major in college right now and I am thinking
of becomming an OB/GYN.  My decision is based on the fact that fewer and fewer
doctors coming out of medical school want to enter this field because of the
enormously high cost of malpractice insurance for OBs.  Well, I love children
and I thought that the best way that I could serve God and humanity was to help
bring new life into this world in a way that I am able to.  In deciding to
persue this as a career, I looked into it and was told that it is difficult to
go into Obstetrics without joining it with Gynecology because of the rate of
insurance.  Well, in looking in to the gynecological field, I realized that
abortions were in the realm of practice for them.  I thought long and hard
about what I would do.  Would I perform abortions or not.  I attended several
Right to Life meetings and I talked to several doctors.  I wanted as braod a
base to make my own judgement as possible.  In the end I decided that my view
on abortion is as follows:  I  support abortion in the cases where rape or
incest of anykind is involved.  I cannot imagine making a woman suffer through
either of these pregnancies.  I also support it when it involves risk to the
mother's health.  Where it is a question of this baby making it through versus
the mother's life, I don't know -- that is a personal decision that has to be
made.  In the case of an ovarian tumor where a pregnancy is involved, if the
mother can save her uterus and at least one ovary, where she is able to have
children after that, I think that abortion is allowable. I DO NOT think that it
should be used as an ends to solve a problem.  nor do I think that it is
allowable as a means of birth control.  Even with the pain that my family went
through with my brother, I think that it would have been wrong for the girl to
have an abortion.
        One more thing that has influenced my decision is an editorial cartoon
that I saw one time.  It shouwed a group of pro-lifers (probably Operation
Rescue) lying on the ground outside an abortion clinic, blocking the entrance.
Next to them were two children who were in tattered clothes and looked
malnourished.  The words underneath, said by the children, were:  Can anyone
help us homeless staving children?  I thought about this and realized that with
all of the "rightous" acts bu pro-lifers, I don't se the same strides from that
group to help these children that they demand be brought into the world!
        These are just my thoughts and views that have led me to my belief.  I
am not trying to convince anyone that my way is right.  I would like responses
to these views, if anyone thinks that they are wrong or immoral.  Please
respond by way of email, due to the personal nature of the subject.  Thank you.


Love in Christ,
        John
        197850@XAVIER
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.christia