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About The print. (Oregon City, Oregon) 1977-1989 | View Entire Issue (Nov. 17, 1982)
& Dialogue Pro-life Abortions are immoral acts To the Editor: Ideas shape civilizations. Because our culture holds humanitarianism to be one of its most precious values, we con sider ourselves to be the most “civilized” people on the globe. But are we really? We’ve killed rriillions of prospective scientists, engineers, and politicians- we’ve aborted them. There are many misconceptions about abortion and I would like to help clear up a few. First, ' most abortions are not therapeutic. They are non-therapeutic, which means that they are not perform ed to insurje the life or the health of the woman, but rather for her desire for convenience. “In my 36 years of pediatric surgery, I have never known of one instance where the child had to be aborted to save the mother’s life”—C. Everette Koop, M.D., U.S. Surgeon General. Second, abortions are publicly funded. Here, I would like to expose the enormity of the fund. In 1979, the total costs for medical care was $17 billion including state and local shares (1980 Statistical Abstract). Performing surgeries makes doc tors and hospitals their biggest profits. Of all surgical procedures, non- therapeutic abortion is the second most common. Close to $17 billion helps to subsidize these “surgeries.” Doctors per form over 1.5 million per year in the U.S. alone. Information on surgeries is rarely given without a visit to the doctor first, Love Joy Specialty (“Specialty” means abortion) volunteered me information over the phone. “We do abortions all the way up to the 20th week,” the receptionist eagerly said. They charge from $175 to $600. How do doctors reconcile the ideas of saving lives with the techniques of destroying them? Dr. John Szenens, 40 said, “you have to become a bit schizophrenic. In one room you en courage the patient that the slight ir regularity of the fetal heart is not important-that she is going to have a fine healthy baby. Then in the next room you assure another woman on whom you just did a saline abortion, that’s it’s good that the heart is already irregular. . . she has nothing to worry about, she is not going to have a live baby.” Third, in Ms. Rose’s letter about abortion she stated, “Let’s be brutally honest about another issue: there is no such thing as the sanctity of human life.” This could not have been better put. Saying that life isn’t valuable and that it can be justifiably, destroyed by another person is a brutal perception. That trend of thought makes living in our society dangerous. Fourth, removing public funding will neither stop abortion nor change the quality of abortions. Unless they’re stupid, doctors won’t perform cheap abortions and risk malpractice suits. The woman determined to get an abortion (The Print always en courages reader reactions. However, it is our editorial policy to hold debate on any one subject for not more than three issues. ( No rebuttles to the pro-life and pro-choice articles herein will be published.) will simply have to pay through the teeth for it. To stop the massive number of abortions they must be made illegal. Many gasp at this thought, but they should be gasping at the thought of murdering millions of infants yearly. Dr. Bernard Nathanson, who presided over the world’s largest abor tion clinic, helped to get abortion legaliz ed in 1973. He admits that he circulated false figures to sway the Supreme Court’s decision. Nathanson, along with several other pro-abortionists, said that 5,000-10,000 women died every year from “back alley” abortions. He now says that that figure was closer to 500, but in 1972 (the year before abortion was made legal) only 39 deaths were actually recorded. After presiding over 75,000 deaths, Dr. Nathanson came to believe that those infants in the womb were little people, and that he was murdering them (according to Last Days Ministries, Lindale, TX). Fifth, the unborn baby is never non-human. Science tells us that when the sperm and ovum unite they become a complete genetic package programm ed for development into a mature adult. Nothing will be added except time and nutrition. The baby’s heart starts beating at three weeks, his organs are forming at four weeks, and he feels pain at eight weeks. Sixth, abortion is an easy decision for many women. A few days ago a 16 year-old girl was calling on a public phone in a bank. “Hello, my name is -------- -------- . Could you please tell me the results of my test?,Oh, it’s positive? Well, could you please tell me where I can get an abortion?” The girl didn’t care if ppeple overheard her. Such is the flippant attitude of our socie ty. We are extremely twisted in our thinking. God solemnly warns us, “Do not kill the innocent... for I will not ac quit the guilty” (Ex. 23:17). I fear for those pronounced guilty: women, boyfriends, relatives, doctors, nurses, politicians, all who allow this murdering to go on, and even promote it. These babies do not have to be kill ed. There are many people who have been waiting years to adopt a child. There is no such thing as an unwanted Somebody will want him. Pro-choice Editorial goes not far enough To the Editor: Mr. Sumner is correct when he maintains that abortion is a premature sacrifice of innocent human life, or at least of potentially innocent, potential human life. We must face the truth: life begins at conception, and post conception termination of life is murder.. So what if the scientific proof is a little fuzzy. So what if the supreme court, the congress, and most voters disagree with us. What is right is right; that much is obvious. Mr. Sumner speaks with eloquent justice when he says, “Publicly funded and supported abortion-on-demand must be stopped.” However, he does not go far enough. We cannot stop tax- financed abortion yet allow private clinics to continue operating: such an act would only make murder the prerogative of the rich. There is another problem, too. Abortion is not the only technique for butchering these innocents. Both the I.U.D. and most varieties of birth con trol pills do their dirty work on the fetus after conception. All three perform the same deed—the killing of an innocent child-only the technique is different. The pill poisons on a day-to-day basis, the I.U.D. is a pre-set trap, and the abortion is a tantamount to an ambush. If we want to restore-please pardon my analogy—law and order to the woman’s womb, we must rid ourselves of all three bandits. The key word in this controversy is innocent. We must let these children be born. It does not matter so much that they will be unwanted, unloved, un cared for, unfed or uneducated. Many of history’s most influential figures started out with these same problems— Moses, Julius Caesar, Aladdin, Cinderella, and Hitler—and they all overcame them, though with admittedly varying results. 1 realize we must accept quite a population boost, particularly among parents who’d be better off without more children. I further realize that the abolition of post-conception murder (“birth control” is too pleasant a euphemism) may create severe shor tages of food, water, shelter and medicine. But murdering innocents is murdering innocents; that remains ob- jvious. Everyone around you may be tell The key word here is still innocent. ing you you’d be a fool to have this This is also the key to a humane solu baby-but they don’t have to live with tion. Abortion would make more sense the guilt and pain of murder . . . you do. if we could distinguish the Hitlers from Jesus loves you and your baby very, the Moseses at conception. While we very much. He will'help you, even cannot make this judgment so early, we when it looks like it’s impossible. Satan can make it later in life. I propose, wants you to destroy your baby, he is a therefore, that we weed out, at the age murderer—don’t join in with him. Put of eight, those children who are morally your life in Jesus’ hands, and you will unfit. At this age, children who show lit live forever, plus, have all your needs tle promise can be painlessly converted taken care of. He is a mighty and to protein-rich, canned food for the ad awesome God, and he is able to take ditional starving masses we’ve created you and your baby under the shadow of by limiting our birth control options. his wing. Perhaps this sounds unpleasant, par ticularly for the children, but consider Love, the benefits of such a policy. Sarah Larson During their formative years, these children will be given opportunities to absorb both academic and moral in struction. At their eighth birthdays, they will be tested on both of these areas. With the prospect of a third-grade cann ing hanging over each head, how much harder will these little children study in their early years. Those destined to sur vive will diligently master the academic skills that now consume most of high school, thus saving considerable teaching resources. In addition, since moral worth will be a factor in survival, children will be taught by their parents not only to behave well, but to observe and report misbehavior in their peers. We will thus create generations of law- abiding citizens. At the same time, we shall have given our population the discipline necessary to resist external threats to our free society. It may be objected that human flesh is not the most appropriate food for human consumption, but we need not eat our own canned children. There are plenty of people who’ll appreciate them in underdeveloped parts of the world and in our own inner city slums. Kids, after all, make better food than rats. Naturally, there will be those diehards who say that eight years old is too young an age to judge a child. But look how young they are when we ter minate their existence now. Those extra years will be for some a blessing they’d have missed. For successful con testants, it will be a chance to establish their true potential as productive (ex cuse me, living productive) human be ings; for those who fail, this system of fers both a fair trial and a useful, dignified death. Shakespeare himself, lecturing on this very dilemma, said that it . . . puzzles the will, And makes us rather bear those ills we have Than to fly to others that we know not of. Thus conscience does not make cowards of us all! It’s time for us to face our collective conscience. If we act decisively, we can stop the murders of today and solve the problems of tomorrow. We cannot stop death—that is someone else’s job—but we can insure that those who die deserve to die, and that they die in a no ble cause. In closing, we should all thank Mr. Sumner for pointing us the way out of our moral morass. We should also thank Jonathan Swift for his initial proof that ethical problems are best treated with economic medicine. Hopefully, my modest addition to their cogent arguments will move a step further down the path of moral regeneration we so desperately fear to tread. Steve Applebaum English Department page 3
