& 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