Abortion - General
- Jan 9, 2006 - comment
The abortion rights mantra is loudly proclaimed today by feminist organizations such as the National Organization for Women (NOW) and the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League (NARAL). But feminists have not always been on the side of abortion. In fact, just the opposite is true. One early feminist, Mary Wollstonecraft, wrote a book entitled A Vindication of the Rights of Women in which she condemned those who would “either destroy the embryo in the womb, or cast it off when born.” Susan B. Anthony described abortion as “child murder,” “infanticide” and “foeticide” in her newsletter, The Revolution.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the organizer of the first women’s rights movement in 1848 in Seneca Falls, New York called abortion a “disgusting and degrading crime.” She called abortion a form of infanticide and said, “When you consider that women have been treated as property, it is degrading to women that we should treat our children as property to be disposed of as we see fit.”
Anti-abortion laws, which the early feminists worked so hard to enact, were overturned 100 years later in the Roe v. Wade decision that the National Organization for Women calls a “most fundamental right.”
The Feminist Case Against Abortion (The American Feminist, Fall 2002) [Accessed August 25, 2005]
In February 2004, the New York Times ran an editorial chastising the Food and Drug Administration for delaying approval of the morning after pill without a prescription. Their reasoning was that having to obtain a prescription presented an unnecessary barrier to those who faced the possibility of an unwanted pregnancy after their failure to use any contraceptive measure prior to sexual activity. They also pointed out that opposition came from the religious and political right.
That opposition was for good reason. Greg Rummo, a syndicated columnist and Christian business man, responded: “The morning after pill is not technically birth control in the sense that we understand birth control as a means to prevent conception . . . The morning after pill is an abortifacient. It kills a fertilized egg—a little human being—by causing changes to the inside of the uterus making implantation impossible.” His statement was based on a 1994 article in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology entitled “The Morning-after Pill: How Long After?” which said, “If an ovum is in the Fallopian tube, the process of fertilization may begin within 15 to 30 minutes after intercourse. The ‘morning after’ is already too late for any contraceptive effect to intervene. Thus some researchers conclude that post-coital drugs act principally to terminate a viable pregnancy by interfering with the endometrium: … this mode of action could explain the majority of cases where pregnancies are prevented by the morning-after pill.” So emergency contraception is, in fact, simply abortion of another type, called by another name.
Greg Rummo, “But the ‘Morning After’ Pill Is an Abortion,” http://www.gregrummo.com , February 27, 2004 [Accessed August 25, 2005]
| Reason | Percentage |
|---|---|
| Not ready for a(nother) child/timing is wrong | 25 |
| Can’t afford a baby now | 23 |
| Have completed my childbearing/have other people depending on me/children are grown | 19 |
| Don’t want to be a single mother/am having relationship problems | 8 |
| Don’t feel mature enough to raise a(nother) child/feel too young | 7 |
| Would interfere with education or career plans | 4 |
| Physical problems with my health | 4 |
| Possible problems affecting the health of the fetus | 3 |
| Was a victim of rape | < 0.5 |
| Husband or partner wants me to have an abortion | < 0.5 |
| Parents want me to have an abortion | < 0.5 |
| Don’t want people to know I had sex or got pregnant | < 0.5 |
| Other | 6 |
| Total | 100 |
Adapted from Lawrence B. Finer, et al, Reasons U.S. Women Have Abortions: Quantitative and Qualitative Perspectives, (Table 3) (Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health, Vol. 37, No. 3, 2005)
The August 24/31, 2005, edition of the prestigious Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) contained an article entitled “Fetal Pain: A Systematic Multidisciplinary Review of the Evidence.” The authors stated that their studies showed unborn children do not feel pain during an abortion procedure. Two of the authors, it has now been revealed, have ties to the abortion industry. The lead author, Susan J. Lee, is a medical student at the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF). She once worked for NARAL (the National Abortion Rights Action League). Another author, Eleanor Drey, is a UCSF obstetrician-gynecologist who is the medical director of the abortion center at San Francisco General Hospital. Neither of the authors told JAMA of the abortion industry ties prior to the publication of the article. JAMA’s editor-in-chief, Catherine DeAngelis, said that she was unaware of the ties of the authors to the abortion movement. She also said the revelation could hurt the credibility of the publication.
Dr. Kanwaljeet Anand of the University of Arkansas Medical Center says the report is biased. Several specialists in the development of unborn children, including Anand, have shown that babies feel pain as early as 20 weeks into the pregnancy. He also said that other medical studies have concluded that unborn children are “very likely” to be “extremely sensitive to pain during the gestation of 20 to 30 weeks.” Anand also stated that a late-term abortion procedure, such as partial-birth abortion, “would be likely to cause severe pain.”
Steven Ertelt, JAMA Editor ‘Unaware’ Abortion Advocates Wrote Fetal Pain Study (LifeNews.com), August 25, 2005
The percentage of women who believe that unrestricted abortion should be the law of the land has undergone a major shift in the last 12 years. Twelve years ago, 49 percent held that view. Today, only 28 percent believe that. And the abortion industry is trying to figure out why.
Alexander Sanger, chairman of International Planned Parenthood, says the numbers are “unbelievably shocking. It’s not just the numbers that are down . . . It’s the enthusiasm.” Sanger has found that many colleges he visits no longer have an abortion rights group. But many have a vocal pro-life faction.
An August 2005 article in Glamour magazine entitled “The Mysterious Disappearance of Young Pro-Choice Women” gave three reasons why the numbers are down: young women now take abortion rights for granted, they believe good birth control will make abortion obsolete, and they’ve see the ultrasound pictures of unborn babies.
Chuck Colson believes Glamour may be partly right. But he believes there are more important reasons. “First, since pro-choice women aborted their daughters, those daughters didn’t grow up to advocate for abortion rights. Meanwhile, pro-life women have taught their daughters why it’s wrong to kill unborn children.
“Second, today’s college kids know that some of their sisters and brothers are missing because their mothers had abortions—and they know that, under different circumstances, they themselves might have been aborted.
“Third, women who abort are breaking through the media blackout to tell their stories—telling younger women how their bodies were damaged by so-called safe, legal abortions—describing how their abortions led to infertility, and to emotional pain that won’t go away. They’re talking about the proven link between abortion and breast cancer, about the higher suicide rate among women who abort, and about women who are killed by chemical abortions. They’re revealing the fact that huge numbers of women regret their abortions for the rest of their lives.”
Charles Colson, Getting Wise to the Lies (Breakpoint Commentary), August 18, 2005
A new statewide pro-life college student organization named Students for Life of Michigan has formed with 13 Students for Life clubs within the state. More are planned for this school year. The group has launched a website, http://www.SFLMichigan.org , that features “career opportunities, events, and resources on a multitude of topics, including pregnancy, abortion, and other pro-life groups.” Katie Wilcox, president of Students for Life of Michigan, stated that “One in five women who have abortions are college students. Students for life of Michigan is a necessary organization in order to show women on campus that abortion is a tragic choice.”
Susan Wang, Statewide Students for Life of Michigan Launched (Christian Post), August 16, 2005
In a letter to her constituents, Feminists For Life President Serrin Foster, made the following statement: “Planned Parenthood predicted it when they first took note of FFL’s College Outreach Program in 1996. They called it the ‘newest and most challenging concept’ and predicted it could have a ‘profound impact’ on college campuses.
“They were right.
“Since 1994, when FFL’s Washington office opened, the abortion rate among college graduates has decreased by 30 percent.
“Perhaps that is why retiring NARAL president Kate Michelman and Planned Parenthood president Gloria Feldt have made outreach to college students a top priority.
“In anticipation of an abortion march in Washington on April 25, inappropriately named ‘March for Women’s Lives,’ Michelman and Feldt crisscrossed the country hoping more women would follow them in support of abortion.
“College students are not responding to their call as they had hoped.
“A Zogby Poll released in anticipation of the abortion march on Washington revealed that 60.5 percent of those ages 18 to 29 – including college age – oppose abortion in all or most circumstances.
“Nor do a majority of American women support abortion. According to the Center for the Advancement of Women, founded by former Planned Parenthood President Faye Wattleton, 51 percent of U.S. women of all ages oppose abortion in all or most cases.
“I wish you could see the new confidence of pro-life leaders on campus. At Wellesley and Harvard, Berkeley, Cornell, Gonzaga and the University of Florida, I have witnessed a profound shift in the numbers of activists-and the percentage in the audience who are pro-life. Sally Winn, FFL’s vice president, has seen the same transformation at Dartmouth, University of Michigan, University of Kentucky, Medical College of Ohio, Oberlin College, University of North Carolina and others.”
Serrin Foster, Dear Feminists for Life (Feminists for Life), [Accessed September 12, 2005]
Luke Vander Bleek, who owns four pharmacies in suburban Chicago, Illinois, is suing the state’s governor over an administrative ruling that he must sell Plan B contraceptives (the “morning after” pill) if he sells other contraceptives in his stores. Vander Bleek is opposed to Plan B contraceptives because they are taken after sexual intercourse and the fertilization of an egg. The Plan B pill prevents the fertilized egg from being implanted in the uterus—an action many believe is tantamount to abortion. Since 1977, 28 states have introduced legislation that protects a pharmacist’s right to refuse to sell the pills because of personal beliefs. Four states have now passed laws that give the pharmacist the right to refuse to fill Plan B prescriptions. Seven states and Canada allow pharmacists to dispense Plan B without a prescription. Just how many women have been refused the contraceptive? No exact figures have been kept but groups tracking the controversy say it is happening more frequently now.
Pharmacist Resists Illinois Rule on Contraceptives, August 22, 2005
The Christian Medical Association (CMA) recently called attention to the hypocrisy of The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) by citing an August 30, 2005 letter from the ACOG president, Dr. Michael T. Mennuti, to U.S. senators calling for a change in the law that allows doctors to opt out of abortion procedures. The letter called for a change that would require any doctor who refused to participate in an abortion to be required to refer the patient to another doctor who would provide one.
CMA Executive Director Dr. David Stevens asked, “If a physician is morally opposed to abortion, why would that same physician violate his or her conscience by referring a patient to an abortionist to end the baby’s life? And what kind of nation would force its physicians to violate their consciences and their Hippocratic oath by mandating participation in abortions?”
CMA Associate Executive Director, Dr. Gene Rudd, an obstetrician and gynecologist, added, “For years, many of us who have belonged to ACOG have hoped to change the organization from within, hoping that reason and Hippocratic values would prevail over the organization’s strident and inappropriate abortion advocacy. It has become clear that in the blind pursuit of abortion at any cost, the ACOG leadership is ready to sell out its own membership by advocating laws that remove the rights of physicians. With more and more physicians morally opposed to abortions, this move for mandates simply shows the desperation of abortion advocates to enforce their agenda by any and all means.”
Steven Ertelt, Christian Doctors Group Blasts ACOG on Abortion Conscience Clause (LifeNews.com), September 11, 2005