Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site pur-phy.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxj!mhuxn!houxm!ihnp4!inuxc!pur-ee!CS-Mordred!Pucc-H:pur-phy!act From: act@pur-phy.UUCP (Alex C. Tselis) Newsgroups: net.abortion Subject: Beyond "Prolife" Smugness: The Consequences They Never Thought of Message-ID: <1545@pur-phy.UUCP> Date: Mon, 3-Dec-84 20:21:04 EST Article-I.D.: pur-phy.1545 Posted: Mon Dec 3 20:21:04 1984 Date-Received: Tue, 4-Dec-84 09:12:15 EST Distribution: net Organization: Purdue Univ. Physics Dept., IN Lines: 188 Below are some observations made by my wife about the recent brouhaha about the antiabortion film. I should add that I am in agreement with her. I also feel that there has been too much discussion of rarefied abstractions in this net group, and that people have gotten bogged down in discussions which resemble nothing so much as the Medieval philosophers' debates about saturation of pinheads with dancing angels. I thought that I'd contribute my wife's discussion because it raises some real and concrete issues which may help keep the discussions down to earth. ------------------------------------------------ Re: Ms. Allen What seems singularly absent from all the discussion of abortion is any mention of *children,* the invitable result of non-aborted pregnancies. Ms. Allen mentions with pride that she belongs to a group that places pregnant women with families while they're pregnant. Er, yes, Ms. Allen, but then what? The much touted "solution" of adoption really only works in those instances where the baby is in *perfect* physical & metal health, is white & has a mother who is willing to give it up. Otherwise, you have a woman who: a) is usually alone b) is likely to be underpaid because of sexual discrimination and/or interrupted education c) has to juggle taking care of the kid & a job (or welfare, but there's not so much of that to go around these days) d) frequently is a child herself e) frequently has a sick or handicapped child, espcially if d) is true f) may not be in such great shape herself, especially if d) is true. Who then takes care of that baby? Who pays for it? And who continues to take care of and pay for that child on an ongoing basis for 18 years as it grows from a cute little infant into a child and then an adolescent? What happens if that "delicately formed" little fetus grows up to be a severely handicapped little baby? We, as a country, have shown (by re-electing our "pro-life" prez) that we do not want the government to feed or care for poor or handicapped children. If that pregnant mother whom you have so kindly placed with some family cannot take care of her child, just who will? The point is, parenthood is a commitment. And commitments that aren't entered into voluntarily aren't too likely to be kept. In fact, the law recognizes that most commitments that one was coerced into making are not legally binding. But what the anti-abortionists seem to be arguing is that the responsibilities of parenthood are so trivial, so irrelevant, so beside the point that parenthood is the kind of commitment that one can be forced to make with no bad effects. Would anyone make the same kind of argument about any other commitment? In some ways, marriage is a "lesser" commitment than parenthood because if one partner is unable to keep his/er commitment, the other partner is nonetheless capable of taking care of him/erself. Yet who, in this country at least, argues that people should have no choice about if/when & whom they marry? One's responsibilities as a spouse are so much less than one's as a parent & yet *parenthood* is what people are trying impose on others. I have heard anti-abortionists claim that pro-choice advocates don't give the fetuses any choice. That is certainly true. But parents don't give their children, especially their younger children, much choice about anything. The usual assumption is that parents know more about what is good for their children than the child does. And the truth of the matter is that aborting a fetus may well be in best interests of the *child* as well as of the parent. How many children would *choose* to be born into a home in which they weren't wanted? How many children would *choose* to be born into a home in which they'd be abused? If Ms. Allen wishes to sensationalize things, she should remember that two can play that game. And she should remember that the child abuse statistics--& the nation's response to child abuse--are appalling enough that they really don't need to be sensationalized. Let's not dwell on the pain & fear that children who are physically &/or sexually abused undergo. Let's just look at *their* choices. First, you can stick around & hope you learn to duck/run well enough that you survive. This option does not work well for small children or babies, but then very little works well for small children or babies who are abused. (And they are the ones who are most likely to suffer when the mothers are teenagers and/or if they were unwanted. I think the incidence of child abuse among teenage mothers is 70%.) Lots of younger children simply get killed because they can't run &/or duck. So before you screech in horror too much about how *abortions* are performed, look at autopsy reports of abused children & find out what *one* of the alternatives to abortion really is. Are you seriously prepared to argue that it hurts *less* to have one's skull bashed in *after* one is born? The second option for abused children is that they can run away. Children who run away are treated like criminals if they are caught & sent to state institutions (see below for more details on those "humane" institutions). If they survive on the streets, they do so by breaking the law. One of the most common ways is by becoming prostitutes. There is of course, shoplifting and drug pushing or some combination of the three. Virtually every violent (& many of the non-violent) offenders in our nation's prison system were abused children, Ms. Allen. The third option is to tell someone. If you has an extended family near by that is willing to believe you & that is willing to risk alienating the abusive parent, this is probably the best solution. But how many children are that lucky? If you doesn't have a supportive relative, there is always the state. Ah, the state. Virtually every one of the 50 states' "juvenile justice" systems are at worst appalling & at best, non-uniformly mediocore. If a complaint is made about a child being abused, usually only that child is removed from the home at that time--the rest have to be beaten first to be removed. What happens to the battered child? S/he is sent to a foster home--if there is one open. (If all the children in a family are taken out at one time there is no guarantee--in fact little likelihood--that the siblings will be kept together.) Foster homes may or may not be carefully selected--depending on the state/social worker/whatever--& children are likely to be abused in foster homes, also. What if there are no foster homes available? Then there are those charming warehouses for tots--those training schools for little crimminals known as state institutions. Not only are victims of child abuse routinely put in the same kind of institutions as say, children who throw knives at their teachers, they are also subject to all kinds of abuse in these institutions. Older inmates may rape them, the staff may rape them, the staff may beat them, older kids may beat them & at the same time, the lesson they are learning best is how to become an adult criminals. You spoke of there needing to be a "window on abortion." I have just given you a "window" on how this country treats its children. And lest you think that I am only talking about some small number of children, remember that child abuse is estimated to take place in 1 out of 6 homes. And that child abuse occurs in the homes of the well-to-do as well as in the homes of the poor. America & America's parents have failed miserably in their commitment to their children. (Actually, I just told you about abused children. I didn't even address the issues of children who not abused but who are undernourished or children who are handicapped & have to live in other kinds of institutions.) Yet you wish to inflict this kind of torture on more children. When I go to Planned Parenthood to get my birth control pills, I am met by angry protesters who scream nasty things at me & at whoever goes to that clinic. These women spend hours of their time & effort & even money to force parenthood on the unwilling and the unable. (What they basically succeed in doing is scaring away teenagers who want birth control devices & then the teenagers get pregnant & then some of them are more scared of pregnancy than the protesters so they go in & have abortions. Or, to put it another way, these brilliant anti-abortionists probably cause more abortions than they prevent.) Yet they are unwilling to do anything for children who are alive now. I have asked everyone of those women how many handicapped children have they adopted. The answer is always zero. I have asked them how many interracial children they have adopted. Zero again. How many children who were not babies have they adopted? Zero yet again. Have they ever adopted any babies at all? No. Have they ever taken in foster children? No. What charities do they work on? Basically anti-abortion outfits. Have they ever funded a clinic similar to Planned Parenthood (except that it wouldn't do abortions)? No. Have they ever given poor women money to get either birth control or PAP smears? Of course not. Is it possible (as Letty Cottin Pogrebin suggests) that these people don't give a damn about children but only about pregnancy? Unborn fetuses are terribly easy to love--they are silent, relatively undemanding & "live" for only nine months. It's children who are difficult to love on an ongoing basis; it's children who require a lifelong commitment and it's children who are being *routinely* abused and neglected in this country. Therefore, it's also *children* whom we should be thinking of when we think of abortion. The moral issue is not "do I have a right to an abortion," but "do I have the right to bring a child into the world that I know I cannot take care of properly for 18 years & for whom no one else will take responsibility?" And people like Ms. Allen seem unwilling to make this a decent country for *children* to live in. Just *imagine* the difference it would make if the energy & the money put into the anti-abortion movement were spent on living children instead! Think of how beneficial it would be for everyone if the women who warp themselves by hissing "Nazi" at me or by bombing abortion clinics were to turn that emotional energy into love for living children! I'm not just pro-choice because I think the right to an abortion is a necessity; I'm pro-life because I care about the *living* more than I care about the unborn. And until I see the anti-abortionists listen to the very audible screams of living children, I'm not going to have too much empathy for their nightmares about the alleged "silent screams" of fetuses.