Image provided by: Clackamas Community College; Oregon City, OR
About The Clackamas print. (Oregon City, Oregon) 1989-2019 | View Entire Issue (March 5, 2003)
- D u M The Clackamas Print ■ < 3 March 5, 2003 Are proposed abortion bills necessary? ★ THE CLACKAMAS PRINT* Editor-in-Chief Daisy Bain Copy Editor Shadra Beesley Managing News Editor Frank Jordan News Editor Pete Ford Opinion Editor Robb Egan Feature Editor Elisabeth Meyer A&E Editor Jen Kane Sports Editor Elena Boryska Photo Editor Luke Mahan Webmaster Joel Gaynor Advertising Manager Mark Falling ext. 2578 Staff Writers: Megan Cobb Melinda Crouchley Heather Dahmen Nic Delzell Cyndee' Mady Sadie McCarthy Mike Pollock Andy Price Cory Price Tina Tate Production Assistants: Jake Carpenter Katie Funk Secretary: JoAnne Gale Adviser: Linda Vogt Goals: The Clackamas Print aims to report the news in an honest, unbiased, professional manner. The opinions expressed in The Clackamas Print do not neces sarily reflect those of the student body, college administration, its faculty, or The Clackamas Print. Products and services advertised in The Clackamas Print are not necessarily endorsed by anyone associated with The Clackamas Print. The Clackamas Print is a weekly publication and is dis tributed every Wednesday except during Finals Week. The Clackamas Print Copyright 2003. 19600 S. Molalla Ave. Oregon City, Oregon 97045 (503) 657-6958 X2309 cccprint@clackamas.edu http://www2.dackamas.edu/lheprint Three of the four bills will inhibit a woman's right to choose Proposals will educate women about the impact of abortion A woman’s right to choose is absolutely vital; it’s a woman’s body, a woman’s mind and a woman’s responsibility. Women have been having abortions for decades. Were they always legal? Of course not, but women were still having them and women were dying. Are we going to reverse our social thinking back 50 years? That would be absurd. Currently, four bills are going through the legislature to regulate abortions. The first requires that abortion providers educate patients 24 hours before the procedure. This could leave too much room for providers to thrust their opinions upon patients. Just because a provider is performing an abortion, doesn’t always mean they agree with them. A woman should know the risks before the procedure, but the woman should ask, not be told. The second bill requires parental consent if the patient is under 17. Should a parent decide if their child should bear another child? America has experienced back-yard abortions before; parental consent will only force teenage women to experience the same horrible conditions that existed in the ‘50s /' The third bill requires clinics or doctor’s offices that perform abortions to meet state operations standards for surgical centers. I don’t oppose this bill. While it may put strain on clinics economically, I do believe it can only bet ter the patient’s care. . / <■ . ' ' ' The last bill is completely out of control. It requires a woman seeking abortion of a fetus 20 weeks or older to be told that the fetus can feel pain and asked if she wants anesthesia for the fetus. There is absolutely no proof that a fetus can feel pain. When a woman walks into a clinic or doctor’s office to have an abortion, she has made up her mind to have the abortion. She has her reasons, and they are her own. Repeating some thing that has absolutely no hard evidence like that will only further the emotional trauma that could be caused. Why put someone who is proven to be able to ¡feel pain thyrougK jfaat? . ; r, , Almost, two thirds of the women I know, have been sexually assaulted. What if a pregnancy came from one of those assaults? Who is to say that the emotional trauma caused by an abortion is going to exceed the emo tional trauma of giving birth to a child whose conception was never even considered as a choice? Legislators would be condemning the poor woman to a.life-long reminder of that horrible event in her life. There are many life-threatening conditions.as well. When I was 19,1 became pregnant. The father was my fiancé. 1 became so ill that I could n’t even move for two months without throwing up. I lost 35 pounds in two weeks and became so weak that I couldn’t pick myself up out of the bathtub. My doctors scrambled to figure out why I was so sick, but came up with nothing. I couldn’t take it any longer. I became so weak and dehydrated that I had a miscarriage. Four months later, I became pregnant again. I tried everything to stay healthy. Nothing worked, and once again I was in and out of the hospital for weeks. One day a nurse mentioned to me that my body might not be able to handle a pregnancy. I felt she was right. I chose to have an abortion. I think about it every day of my life. Do I regret my decision? No. I feel that I was informed, and I had the love and support from everyone close to me.. When a woman starts having sex, she automatically forms an opinion about abortions, even if her opinion changes when faced with the decision. Women who complain about not being informed when they had their abor tion are ridiculous. Whose responsibility is it to inform them? If one is adult enough to have sex, she should take it upon herself to do a little research and get her facts straight. Abortions create more emotional pain than physical—there is no way around it-but a woman should be allowed to make a decision that is going to affect her for the rest of her life. A woman’s uterus is her own. A woman’s mind is her own. A woman’s body is her own. The world cannot legislate the crucial elements that make a woman a woman. The government needs to choose their battles; this should not be one of them. A woman’s “right” to choose is once again being threatened in Oregon, and abortion advocates around the area are throwing a fit. Several new bills are being presented that would, among other things, require medical professionals to inform mothers of the medical risks involved in having an abortion, man date a 24-hour waiting period before an abortion can be performed and inform the mother that her baby may feel pain during the procedure. While these won’t outlaw abortion altogether, they will help educate women about the impact their choices have on their future, as well as that of their unbom child. As a huge pro-life supporter, I think these are great ideas. I find it ludicrous that mothers can legally have their pregnancies terminated, thereby killing the unborn child. The second the baby comes into the world, the very same action is classified as murder. I see no difference between the two. Why protect one arid not the other? Why can people see how precious babies are when they are out of the womb but not while in it? Shouldn’t we be protecting them even more during this amazing time of development? To me this makes no sense. All of that aside, I’m going to address some of the more heated issues that these bills bring up. House Bill 2550 will make it mandatory for doctors to inform mothers that there is a possibility their babies will feel pain during the abortion, and offer to administer anesthesia to the child. That way, women know ahead of time how their actions may affect their child. It could also help them realize that rather than just tissue, it is actually a living human being inside them. Pro-ahortionists say that this gives unproven information as fact and is solely to discourage abortions. However, according to www.ortl.org, medical journals have proven that a baby’s development has been shown to begin shortly after conception and continue until the time of birth. At 24 days, the heart beats regularly. At 30 days, blood begins to flow in the vascular system. At 43 days, “electrical brain wave patterns can be recorded. This is usually ample, evidence that ‘thinking’ is taking place in the brain. The new life may be thought of as a thinking person.” So at just 43 days old, the child has brain wave patterns and can think. So if it can think, shouldn’t it be able to feel pain as well? Why wouldn’t it be a good idea to let women know how much their baby really can feel before they abort it? That is why this bill is so important. It’s more than a question of rights; it gives information that affects life and death. House Bill 2547, the “informed consent bill,” will require health care providers to let women know of links befweerihaving an abortion and other health conditions, and add a 24-hour waiting period between the time of con sultation and the abortion. What’s wrong with that? Wouldn’t you want to know how dangerous a procedure is before you have it done? There are far too many women who decided to have an abortion and found out about all of the consequences afterward—like guilt, depression and thoughts of suicide, among other medical concerns. The suggested waiting period in this bill also would prevent women from making rash decisions. If you had a huge decision to make—and this is definitely a big one—wouldn’t you want to know all of the facts and risks, and have a little time to digest the information? Sometimes people do things in the heat of the moment that they later regret, especially when they are emotionally distraught, and with the required waiting period, women searching for a solution will be able make a more informed decision that they won’t regret later. Even with all of these proposed regulations, the only truly right thing to do is outlaw abortion altogether. I don’t think anybody should be able to kill their unbom child simply because they don’t want it. However, since I seem to be a minority on this subject, the least we can do is help women by providing them with all of the information on what they are about to do. Those of you who think these new bills may put a cap on women’s choices, remember that even without abortion, there will always be a choice: either put the baby up for adoption or keep it. Don’t kill it. believe in peace, just through differ-; ent ways then some. But just because people don’t believe we should go to war, doesn’t mean that the men and women that do go need to be disowned by their nation. I More support needed for America’s always thought it took a lot to be in Armed Forces j,,' 1?:J the military, but now, when I can. take the Trimet bus from CCC to the Dear Editor, ' . I just wanted to say thank you for Clackamas Town Center, get accost the awesome article in the Feb. 19 ed by some civilian who doesn’t edition, entitled “Stop denouncing know much besides what the news our nation’s protectors.” It’s nice to says, and proceed to gel chewed out see that there is actually support out for a good 15 minutes while trying there for people in the United States to keep a civil tongue of my Armed Forces, the Marine Corps own...Now that I see that, I realize especially. So many people today how much more it takes. The people of the United States don’t believe we should go to war and so many believe in peace. Hell, today see only Marines as they most of the Marines that 1 know appear in movies such as Full Metal Letters to the Editor Jacket. They see pilots through movies like Top Gun, in which one RIO (the backseater) “knows” the enemy is close because he is “get ting a hard-on.” h’s through the eyes of Hollywood that America today sees die men and women that go to war for its safety. It’s disgusting. Sure, Marines tend to idolize FMJ, and yeah, we are a bit psycho, but that’s a surface thing. It’s mostly for show, because the populace of America expects such things. Underneath that, however, 95 percent of the Marines I know would much rather be at home with their girlfriend/wife/kids than over in a foreign country, fighting for the safe ty of people who despise them. Even with the support of America, they’d rather be borne because they believe in peace, too, just like the majority of the United States. We just believe in going about it in a different way, going to what we see as the source of the problem, directly. But the support of loved ones, and of our entire nation is a huge boost. It helps us to get through that tour. But we know that, with the support of our nation, we’ll come home welcomed, with a place to be, and for people who have only seen sand for a year, that’s an awesome thing to look forward too. Sincerely, FPU Paul Sanford Clackamas student United States Marine Corps
