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Pastimes : Pro Choice Action Team -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Rarebird who wrote (363)	2/9/2001 8:28:17 AM
From: Tom Clarke	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 948

None Dare Call It Killing by Joseph Sobran Our new president has angered feminists, liberal editorialists, "civil libertarians," and other abortion advocates by cutting off federal aid to groups that promote abortion abroad. The Washington Post says his act was not "bipartisan," but "divisive," with "ugly" consequences. As I read the denunciations, I noticed, for the hundredth time, a curious aversion shared by all advocates of abortion: they shun the word kill. As in, "An abortion kills a human fetus." That’s what we’re talking about, right? Killing a fetus? It’s alive, growing, moving by its own impulses (not its mother’s will), until an abortionist – I mean "abortion provider" – cuts it apart or vacuums it out or applies a lethal chemical, and it dies. Why be squeamish? We use the word kill freely in other contexts. We kill crabgrass, germs, moths, cockroaches, hornets, mice, and rats. We have to kill mammals, birds, and fish before we eat them. You got a problem with that? George W. Bush is often criticized, by the same progressive-minded folks who favor abortion, for killing murderers who have actually been convicted and sentenced to die by others, merely for refusing to intervene to prevent their scheduled deaths. He has never killed a murderer with his own hands, but his critics don’t mind extending the word to apply it to his acquiescence. But in keeping with the general code of ideologically prescribed etiquette often ridiculed under the heading of "political correctness," there is a strong taboo in the media against describing abortion as what it unquestionably is: killing. If a woman pays for an abortion and the fetus isn’t killed, she hasn’t gotten her money’s worth. She wants that thing dead. The taboo goes beyond words. The media show lots of grisly pictures, from Rwanda, Serbia, and the Middle East, often with prior warnings that you may not want to watch or let your children see. But they never show dead fetuses. Only a "pro-lifer" would make you look at such a thing. When you see a picture of the result of an abortion, you know instantly that some "pro-lifer" has violated the liberal code of decency. Abortion advocates hate those pictures. They complain a lot more about the people who show them than about the people who make them possible. As the poet says: "Their best conscience is not to leave it undone, but keep it unknown." The abortion advocates don’t want us to know, see, or think about what abortion is. They are now complaining that Bush has imposed a "gag rule" on pro-abortion groups. But this is nothing compared with their own self-imposed gag rule that forbids frank public discussion of fetal killing. Notice that I’m not calling it murder. That’s a moral and legal term. Killing is a simple, undeniable physical description. But if you call abortion killing, you are already perilously close to admitting that it’s a form of murder. Everyone knows that that’s what it amounts to. Why else would they shrink from simple candor about the physical facts? If a fetus were a mere piece of tissue, with no more moral significance than an inflamed appendix, why would anyone feel discomfort about destroying it? And why, if the fetus were really felt to be worthless, would abortion advocates insist on being called pro-choice rather than pro-abortion? The people who were (so to speak) pro-choice about slavery were called pro-slavery, though they didn’t want to force anyone to own slaves. They merely wanted the state to protect the right of some people to own others. The abortion advocates like the smart slogan "Against abortion? Don’t have one." Imagine the pro-slavery equivalent: "Against slavery? Don’t own one." Sometimes we are hypocrites in what we say. But we can also be hypocrites in our silence, including evasions of the terribly obvious. Millions of human beings are being killed in their mother’s wombs, where, of all places, they should be safest. And this is all right by millions of other people, who, however, refuse to say so in plain English. They claim to protect women’s rights, freedom, the Constitution, even the children who are being killed – who, if allowed to live, they triumphantly point out, would have to be fed. Why, there’s not a single advocate of killing among them! February 9, 2001 lewrockwell.com

To: Rarebird who wrote (363)	2/9/2001 9:11:18 AM
From: PROLIFE	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 948

Fine, call me a moral bigot then, if it makes you feel better. No use in me arguing with you, BTY, did you allow your bride to see the questions posted by Neeney? Here is something for you.:: Over 500,000 Women Affected by Post-Abortion Syndrome Source: Elliot Institute Press Release; August 23, 2000 Springfield, IL -- Pro-choice researchers writing in the August issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry have acknowledged that some women experience post-abortion syndrome (PAS). The research team, led by Dr. Brenda Major, diagnosed PAS among 1.4 percent of a sample of women who had abortions two years previously. Critics of abortion are elated by this admission but insist the researchers have only spotted the "tip of the iceberg." "Even at the low rate identified in this study, the impact is tremendous," said Dr. Vincent Rue, who first proposed PAS as a variant of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in 1981. "With 40 million abortions since 1972, this would translate into 560,000 cases of PAS." Rue also notes that many women in the study reported psychiatric disorders that are less severe than full-blown PAS. Twenty percent of the women in the Majors study experienced clinical depression. Also, when asked if they would do it all over again, 31 percent reported that they would not have chosen abortion or were uncertain. "Since ambivalence is a good predictor of postabortion problems, " said Rue, "it is likely that many of these women are having post-abortion symptoms that simply fall short of full-blown PAS." Unlike Rue, the Major's research team focused on the absence of problems among the majority of post-abortive women. They concluded that "most women do not experience psychological problems or regret about their abortion two years post-abortion, but some do. Those who do tend to be women with a prior history of depression." Dr. David Reardon, who directs a post-abortion research and education organization known as the Elliot Institute, sees this association with prior depression as evidence of the need for abortion providers to provide better screening and counseling. "Clearly, this study shows that abortionists should be screening for a history of depression," he said. "It also confirms a large body of earlier research that shows that prior psychological problems are more likely to be made worse by abortion, not better." Reardon says that Major's study has merit, but he insists that it is inappropriate to conclude that abortion is a benign experience for most women. "The biggest shortcomings of this study are the high dropout and refusal rates," he said. "Even though women were offered payment to participate, 15 percent of the women who were initially approached refused to participate, and 50 percent of those who originally participated refused to participate in follow-up interviews. Research has found that those women who are most likely to experience negative post-abortion reactions are also least likely to participate in post-abortion research." This criticism is supported by a recent study which found that women who declined to participate in post-abortion follow-up interviews most closely matched the characteristics of those women who experienced the most post-abortion distress. Dr. Hanna Sderberg, the lead author of that study, reported that "for many of the women, the reason for non-participation seemed to be a sense of guilt and remorse that they did not wish to discuss. An answer very often given was: 'I do not want to talk about it. I just want to forget'." Conducting interviews one year after the abortions, Sderberg's research team found that approximately 60 percent of the women in their sample of 854 women had experienced emotional distress after their abortions. This distress was classified as "severe," warranting professional psychiatric attention, among 16 percent of the women. In addition, over 70 percent stated that they would never consider an abortion again if they faced an unwanted pregnancy. Reardon and Rue agree that several other findings reported by Major's team also deserve greater attention. "Major's study clearly demonstrates the presence of delayed reactions," Reardon said. "She found that negative feelings and dissatisfaction with the abortion decision increased with time-even among her final, lower-risk population. In addition, only a minority of women reported positive emotions, and on average the women reported no beneficial effect from their abortions. This general ambivalence about their abortions, combined with a trend toward increasing negative reactions, contradicts the claim that abortion is generally beneficial to women." Though Major and her colleagues focused mostly on the psychological effects of abortion, they also found that 17 percent of women experienced physical problems such as bleeding or pelvic infection associated with the abortion. "This rate is much higher than abortion providers admit," Rue said. "Clinic counselors rarely inform women of this rate of physical complications."