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From: saquigley@watmath.UUCP (Sophie Quigley)
Newsgroups: net.abortion
Subject: open letter to pro-lifers
Message-ID: <7257@watmath.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 18-Mar-84 11:27:40 EST
Article-I.D.: watmath.7257
Posted: Sun Mar 18 11:27:40 1984
Date-Received: Mon, 19-Mar-84 07:22:27 EST
Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 52

Open letter to pro-lifers:

Has anybody who believes that abortion is a murder ever considered seriously
the possibility that abortion might be an effect rather than a cause of our
carelessness about life in general.  I think that history clearly points to
this interpretation.  Acceptance of abortion is a relatively recent phenomenon,
less than a century old.  Murder, torture, genocide has been happening for as
long as we can remember in human history.  How can it be claimed that all of
these crimes will be caused by the acceptance of abortion?  They exist already
and have existed for thousands of years.  If you are concerned about abortion
creating these crimes against humanity, then I suggest you  wake up and realise
that there is no need for abortion to create those crimes and start do something
about them instead of working on something which is hardly related.  Your
government has already accepted genocide.  It is done in South America under the
name of "american interests".  The people being killed there are clearly human,
they have already been born and proved that they are human and they are still
being killed: indians in guatemala, people opposing the governments of chile,
uruguay, el salvador, the list goes on.
If you are really worried that the genocide will reach home and that there will
be nobody there to help you out when it gets to you because they will all have 
been killed than maybe you should worry about those who are already been killed.

If on the other hand, you are simply worried about desensitisation to life, then
may I suggest that you also look around to see what causes this desensitisation.
It doesn't start with embryos being killed, it starts with animals being killed
and tortured.  This killing is institutionalised, it is called biology 101,
where you learn that it is ok to stick a pin in a frog's brain, squish things
around and then cut it up in little pieces while it is still alive, all this in
the name of "learning".  There are more and more examples, but it is clear that
one of the first ways people are being desensitised to suffering and killing is
by teaching them to do it on animals, and by teaching them to eat flesh and not
think of the animal where it came from as a living being, but as a meat machine.

If finally what horrifies you is the idea that somebody would want to kill their
own children, then maybe you should look around to see why they want to kill
them and work on removing the incentives rather than preventing the killing.
Listen to the women telling you that they want safe methods of birth control
widely available and work on creating those.  Listen to the people telling you
that they cannot have children because they do not have time to take care of
them, and work on creating easily accessible day care facilities.  Listen to 
those telling you that they cannot afford children and help them financially.
Listen to the parents who tell you that they cannot give a child up for adoption
to strangers because they cannot conceive of ever being allowed to see their
child again, and start to work on less punitive adoption systems.  There is a
lot to be done, but in the long run, won't it be more useful than stopping
each woman one by one from having an abortion?

Unless you are working on all these areas, along with your pro-life efforts,
I just cannot believe you genuinely care about life.

				Sophie Quigley
			...!{decvax,allegra}!watmath!saquigley