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About Heppner gazette-times. (Heppner, Or.) 1925-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 27, 1990)
1990-1991 HUMAN RIGHTS REPORT: Paid Political Advertisement CONVENIENCE ABORTION Y eson 8 “The sad truth is that a great number of babies are deliberately aborted not because their mothers are in serious financial need or confronted with grave problems. They are aborted because they are inconvenient. That’s what is meant by abortion on demand, and for all practical purposes it is the law of this land.” — Cardinal John O’Connor A publication of the Human Rights League Slaying Preboms for Convenience Should be Illegal Most people are woefully igno rant about abortion. They actually believe that most abortions are done for extreme life-threatening health reasons or in the painful and traumatic cases of rape or incest. Actually, over 90% of all abortions are done for entirely different rea sons. They are done for reasons of “convenience”. What is a convenience abortion? First, we must define what an abor tion is. W ebster’ s New World Dictionary defines abortion as a: “premature expulsion of a fetus so that it does not live, esp. induced on purpose”. Biological science has long ago proven that the “fetus” has always been a preborn human baby. That’s a fact; therefore, an abortion is the premature expulsion of a pre born human baby so that he or she dies. This death is induced on pur pose. That makes sense considering that the whole reason for an abor tion is to end the preborn’s life. A human life has been created and the persons responsible for that life do not want to deal with it, or expend the care needed to nurture that life. The hard cold reality rem ains, the newly created life must now be disposed of. There is no way to avoid it - no matter how we attempt to deny it or camouflage it. There still remains only one way to end a life. The life must be killed. Webster’s Twentieth Century D ictionary defines the word kill as “to cause the death of; to put to death; to slay”. The truth about abortion will always remain the same. Abortion kills a life. If the baby wasn’t alive there would be no problem, would there? What then is a “convenience abortion”? It is an abortion for rea sons other than a pregnancy threat ening the life of the mother, or a pregnancy resulting from a trau matic experience such as rape or incest. The word in con ven ien t means "not favorable to one’s com fort; difficult to do; causing trouble, to bother, or, not handy”. So, a con venience abortion is an abortion done simply because it disturbs on e’s com fort, plans or le v e l.o f responsibility. What are some of these reasons of inconvenience? A year ago, the Boston G lobe new spaper ran a nation-wide poll asking opinions about the right and wrong of conve nience abortion s. H ere are the results. An.overwhelming majority of American citizens believe abor tion should be prohibited when: the pregnancy happened at the wrong time (82% agree); the mother is a minor (50% .agree); the parent(s) wanted a girl and the preborn.hap pened to be a boy, or vice versa (93% agree); the pregnancy causes economic hardships (75% agree); it is used as a method of birth control (89% agree); the pregnancy causes emotional strain (64% agree); the father is n on -su p portive (83% agree); the father wants a baby and the mother doesn’t (72% agree); the mother wants a baby and the father doesn’t (75% agree). A veraging these figures, 75% o f the voters agree that taking a life for these “convenience” reasons is morally wrong. As amazing as this is, the above categories represent over 90% of all abortions. Hundreds and thousands of little lives are ended because peo ple are using abortion as a contra ceptive. We allow babies to be killed as a method of birth control! We kill simply because they happened to be created as a little girl and not a boy! We kill ju st because the baby, through no fault of its own, hap pened to be conceived at the wrong time! And for one of these reasons of inconvenience, the preborn baby never gets a chance to live outside the womb. As far as the baby is concerned, abortion is final. If the preborn is a little girl, she will never get a chance to see the sunset, feel the Human Rights League Opposes Abortion for Convenience Reasons Measure 8 supporters believe that no innocent person deserves to die for the mere convenience of another. The Measure 8 ballot title, as originally proposed, included the words “convenience abortion” so the public could clearly understand that Measure 8 will not prohibit all abortion but just those done for rea sons of convenience. Liberals on Oregon’s Supreme Court ruled to strike the word “convenience”. M easure 8 would amend Oregon’s constitution to prohibit “convenience" abortions, done for sex selection, birth control, inade quate finances, poor timing, too young or too old. Specifically not included in this prohibition are pregnancies resulting from verified rape, incest or threat to the moth er's life, such as in cases of toxemia, cancer, diabetes, or ectopic (tubal) pregnancies. In reality, prolife doc tors work to save both mother and baby in these situations. If the baby dies, that was not the intent. However, Measure 8 does allow for legal abortions in these difficult sit uations. Endorsement or nonen dorsement of abortion in these hard cases, is a debate for another time. “Our nationwide policy of abor- tion-on-demand through all nine months o f pregnancy was neither voted on by the people nor enacted by our le g isla to rs.” (P residen t Reagan. ABORTION AND THE CONSCIENCE OF THE NATION. Thom as N elson, p. 15.) Special interest groups worked through the unelected court system to impose abortion on demand upon all 50 states. Measure 8 in Oregon is the first straight up and down vote of the people on the central issue of abortion. What your vote is going to decide is w hether som ething so morally wrong as abortion, will remain legal. wind in her hair, or say “Mommy”. If you think that these statements are emotional or political hype, I challenge anyone to tell me which statement is not true! In the lofty realms o f truth, fairness and love, there is no allow able choice. Either abortion is right or it is wrong. And if you believe that the act of abortion is wrong, then it is morally right not to allow that choice to be made. There is no constitutional right of privacy, nor any reprodu ctive freedom that grants one person the right to kill another human being (no matter how small or defenseless) simply because the stronger human being is inconvenienced by the presence of the w eaker human being. Is there??? That is what you will decide on Nov. 6th. Thousands o f preborn babies who have no voice are asking you to stop convenience abortions. Help save the babies — Vote YES on Measure 8! Love and Let Live Babies do not have to die from abortion. You can save them by voting ‘‘yes’’ on Measure 8. The Slippery Slide of Convenience Abortion? First we heard, “We need abor tion legalized for women suffering from rape, incest and back alley deaths.” The public bought this song, while playing quietly in the background was, “We want legal abortion for birth control.” A major goal of Planned Parenthood stated in their Five Year Plan 1976-1980 reads: “protecting the legitimacy of induced abortion as a necessary back-up to con traceptive fa il u re...”(p .3) Legal abortion then becomes a convenient “social eras er” for unmarried women of child bearing age, who constitute less than one-fourth of all women of childbearing age, but obtain 80% of all abortions in the U.S. (74% in Oregon). Then doctors gradually increase the gestation age for which they do abortions. Amniocentesis enters the picture to tell a woman the sex o f her preborn. Doctors “One reason for the tremendously high number o f abortions is that women use abortion as form o f birth control. Abortionists have created a disincentive to responsi ble birth control. There have always been unplanned pregnan cies. But the present ease with which women can obtain abor tions directly encourages irre sponsibility in handling their sex uality. And that, in turn, gives rise to an increasing number o f unplanned pregnancies. And those pregnancies feed into an increasing abortion rate.” Gregg Cunningham. Focus on the Family Citizen. May 21, 1990. p. IS. After You Read, Please Pass It On! pressured by potential lawsuit increasingly warn that the baby “may” have an abnormality. Even though many o f the babies with "possible” problems are born 100% healthy, abortion becom es an escape route for those not willing to take the chance. Next we face the ethical dilemma of later term abor tions producing a “live” baby — the “dreaded co m p lica tion ” as it is called by medical personnel. And why dispose of the aborted fetus, when it can be used for transplants or ex p erim en tation ? Thus, the warm womb, intended to be a safely protected home for bringing new human life into the human race, has become the most deadly loca tion for a human being to reside. ABORTION FOR BIRTH CONTROL A bortion advocates display clear schizophrenia on the subject of “abortion used as birth control.” VOTERS FOR CHOICE are dis tributing a 1990 “Strategy Guide” which advises citizens to argue the issue with these words: “There is no evidence that American women use abortion as a means of birth con trol. I certainly would not condone this and don’t know anyone who would.” 1 However, A1 Moran, director of New York's Planned Parenthood and president o f Voters for Free Choice, told a Maine audience that in states where abortion is covered by Medicare, 40-60% will be second or third abortions and that statis tics have shown that abortion has become “a primary means of birth control.” •' In Oregon, the 1988 abortion statistics from the State Health Division reveal that abortion is Continued on Page 2 t
