file: /pub/resources/text/ProLife.News/1991: pln-0118.txt --------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Life Communications - Volume 1, No. 18 December, 1991 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- This newsletter is intended to provide articles and news information to those interested in Pro-Life Issues. Questions to readers and articles for submissions are strongly encouraged. All submissions should be sent to the editor, Steve (frezza@ee.pitt.edu). ----------------------------------------------------------------------- (1) THE BRAVE NEW WORLD OF DR. GEORGE TILLER Abortionist Dr. George Tiller of Wichita Kansas describes in a letter, reportedly sent to hundreds of physicians, the special classes he has set up for those who opt to avail themselves of his late term abortion services. "...Our Fetal Indications Termination Of Pregnancy program addresses both the emotional well-being as well as the technicalities of an induction termination. Prior to arriving in Wichita, patients may discuss the FITOP program with me, as well as others throughout the United States, Canada and South America who have completed this course of therapy. Each patient has a confirmatory ultrasound study as well as a private consultation. "The patient and her husband/spousal alternative are invited to participate in a Fetal Indications Support and Healing group with the other FITOP patients. All possible efforts are made to allow the patient's husband/spousal alternative to accompany the patient through the labor and miscarriage process." "They are encouraged to be involved in our Fetal Indications Identification and Separation Encounter. In this encounter they are introduced to the normal features of their baby as well as the anomalies. Patients are encouraged to speak directly to their baby if they wish, and finally, to say "good-bye." (Not all patients choose to be involved in this process but we feel that this encounter facilitates the natural process of releasing, letting-go and saying "good-bye.")" - - - - - - - - - - - - - Had Aldous Huxley included such a description of science run amok and separated from moral sanity in his "Brave New World" he would have been denounced for even imagining such perversity. No one would have believed that one day, scarcely 50 years since the publication of Huxley's prophetic masterpiece, groups of mothers and their "spousal alternatives" would be found in some antiseptic "termination" center attending a "Fetal Indications Identification and Separation Encounter" saying to the child within them "Good bye, Baby...mama and spousal alternative love you, but the nice doctor has to throw us in the nice crematorium for babies own good." (The kindly Dr. Tiller reportedly runs his own in-house crematorium for the disposal of the inconvenient would-be-toddlers. Downwind, politically insensitive neighbors complain of the sickening stench.) Note also the chilling use of jargon and euphemism...and then the odd breakthrough into english with the use of the verboten word "baby"...the use of the english word "labor" to describe the slow, horrible death by poisoning of the saved-from-a-less-than-perfect- existence...er, uh, what do you call it....baby? The Brave New World has arrived with a vengeance. - Reader Richard Freeman ----------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- (2) FOCUS ON THE FAMILY How many of you have seen ads like the following? Or heard arguments using this same logic? The following was a paid advertisement published in the Dec. 1991 issue of _The American Spectator_. "OUT OF CONTROL Are you as concerned as we are about *OUT OF CONTROL* #Crimes#, #Drugs#, and #Gang Violence#? And the Budget Deficit that is equally *OUT OF CONTROL*? Welfare reform must begin and government subsidy of irresponsible childbirth must end. We must begin to make hard, fast, and firm distinction between legitimate need and irresponsible baby factories. If not, America will be *DESTROYED FROM WITHIN* in the 21st century. The total cost of AFDC (Aid to Families with Dependent Children) is over $20 **B**ILLION dollars a year! The cost of gang violence and related crime and drug activity is $15 **B**ILLION dollars a year! In 1960 only 5% of all U.S. births were illegitimate. The rate has *quintupled* in just 30 years, largely because of the welfare money incentive and failure to deny funding of illegitimate births. In 1990 **63%** of all U.S. black births were illegitimate. The federal government has assumed the role of wage-earning parents and destroyed initiative, pride, and the family value system. Americans must learn to limit family size based on what they can personally afford. Single parent "families" with 10, 12, even 14 (and more!) children foster larger and larger gang membership rolls. Then, as adults, far too many become career criminals and welfare baby factories themselves. Then unmarried moms and wayward kids can't compete, and don't even try, but know that Uncle will support them. They have to learn to help themselves and be independent. The cycle *MUST BE BROKEN*. The cost to taxpayers of today's AFDC and gang-related problems will seem small compared to tomorrow's cost *UNLESS WE ACT NOW*...." Analysis: The above diatribe is one of most dangerous pro-abortion arguments in circulation today. If pro-life values are going to prevail, we are going to have to effectively answer the objections raised in a way that reaffirms our shared commitment to life. First, we need to put the problem in proper perspective. There are 250 million Americans. $20 billion dollars amounts to $80 per person. $80 dollars a person is hardly going to "BANKRUPT" the country. If the problem got ten times as expensive, it still wouldn't "BANKRUPT" the country. The article projects a "The sky is falling! The Sky is falling!" hysteria that simply isn't rationally related to the risks involved. Second, we need to be clear about who we are blaming for our problems: Are those receiveing ADFC monies to blame for all of these problems? are they the only, or even major ones to blame? Example: In my undergraduate days at Oregon State, I met a fellow student whose life ambition was to set up a dairy farm. Today, there is already too much milk being produced. But the government guarantees to buy all milk produced at a price that guarantees a profit. His dairy will, in effect, milk the taxpayer more than he will milk the cows. I have never once heard my friend, who will cost the taxpayers tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of dollars, annually, labeled as a "social parasite". I have not heard anyone claim that "[Dairy farmers] must learn to limit [herd] size based on what they can personally afford [to sell on the open market]." It seems that the only "irresponsible" milk production that people seem to object to is not the corporate production of millions of gallons of surplus milk destined to rot in government warehouses, but rather the milk produced by the breasts of poor women, used to feed their hungry babies. I do not condemn my friend for taking advantage of the policies the government sets. Nor should we condemn poor women for availing themselves to government services. Third, we need to be clear about what it is that these funds are used for. Take for example theargument put forth in the recent Louisiana elections: Candidate David Duke bitterly denounced the "welfare queens" as irresponsible baby factories. These women do, in fact, only receive $50/month for each additional child they have. If these women are "baby factories," in the business sense, then consider the morning sickness, diaper changes, and 2 AM feedings, the food, the clothes, etc. that must be endured/paid for. This is the least profitable business I have ever heard of. Given the minuscule financial incentive for welfare mothers to have additional children, it is insulting and demeaning to suggest that welfare mothers have children for any other reason than they want them and love them. Fourth, lets be absolutely clear about what is being advocated here: A eugenic solution. What this ad and its sponsors are advocating is that the government dictates who can, and cannot, bare children. A class of people, welfare recipients, are being vilified, and perhaps even demonized, in order to rationalize their involuntarily sterilization as a "necessary" act of "self-preservation." No such justification exists. Eugenic considerations are at stake. "American must learn to limit family size based on what they can personally afford," are just the codewords for, "The poor must be told to have fewer children than the middle class." Those, in turn, are the codewords for, "Blacks must be forced to have fewer babies than whites." However reprehensible this sounds, that is exactly what is being advocated. [I'm sure that Margaret Sanger would very much approve.] Eugenic solutions can only be imposed through coercion. Eugenic solutions require coercive technologies. The methods of `baby control' that the individual controls are condoms, the pill, the diaphragm, abstinence, and periodic abstinence, NFP. The methods of `baby control' that doctors, and therefore, ultimately, the state, control are Norplant, IUDs, sterilization and abortion. It is no accident that doctors tend to steer middle-class white women towards the pill, while they tend to steer poor women toward IUDs and sterilization[1]. It is no accident that PP/WP has been at the forefront of promoting research into "better birth control and sex education," (the "sex education" part being used, of course, to promote the use of that "better birth control".) It is no accident that PP/WP led the opposition to safeguards against "sterilization abuse"[2], ("Involuntary sterilization" for you folks in Rio Linda.) It is no accident that PP/WP is at the forefront of attempts to socially legitimize abortion as "just another method of birth control". The original charter of the American Birth Control League, PP/WP predecessor, called for a mass campaign of involuntary sterilization[3]. The implications are not so straightforward, and can not be forgotten. There is more that a "cycle" of welfare dependency at issue. There is also a "cycle" of hate: Hatred of blacks and minorities "necessitates" eugenics. Eugenics "necessitates" abortion. Abortion necessitates hatred of children. Hatred of children "necessitates" hatred of any remaining demographic groups who continue to have children. That hatred "necessitates" more eugenics... That "cycle" of hatred must be broken. Encouraging others to end the lives of the children through eugenic abortions does not break the cycle, it only adds to it. We must end the hatred. [Many pro-life circles often focus specifically on the values that a particular "pro-choice" argument are endorsing] Sixth, we cannot ignore the problem, which in this case is the "cycle" of welfare dependency. We need to provide credible solutions, and they do exist. In this case, we should break the cycle not because we fear those people in the cycle, but rather, we should break the cycle because we care about the people in the cycle. We should not adopt the pro-death solution of ending those in the cycle, but rather, we should adopt the pro-life solution of helping those people escape the cycle. What is the pro-life way of breaking the cycle? First, the fathers of these children should be required to pay child support. The government should aggressively seek out delinquent fathers and require them to provide financial assistance. If fathers gain no financial advantage in abandoning their children, they are more apt to stay. Governor Tommy Thompson, of Wisconsin, has proposed a system were the fathers are encouraged to marry the mothers, without the threat of welfare being cut off. In fact the state would pay more money to a couple of a dependent child, than they pay to a single mother. When he gets a good job, the cycle of welfare dependency is broken. The government, through welfare, has taken over the role of the wage- earning husband. Since the government has agreed to be the father, the way to break the cycle of dependency is for the state to be not just a father, but a *good* father. One of the most important roles of a father is providing a positive male role model for the children. If the state, through the welfare system, has agreed to be a father, it should take steps to see that the children on welfare are exposed to positive male role models. Another positive step is Governor Thompson's "tough love" program of insisting that children on welfare attend school. Another step is for the state to say to illiterate mothers, "You are on welfare. We are paying you to care for your children. Part of properly raising a child is teaching him the value of learning. Part of teaching the value of learning is reading to your children. As a condition for receiving welfare, we insist that you learn to read, and then read to your child. We will teach you to read at our expense, but we insist you spend the necessary time and effort." By providing positive role models, and attempting to instill middle-class values, we can raise a generation of children who don't want to live in poverty and dependency, and who don't want to hang out with gangs, take drugs, and commit crimes. And if we turn out good kids, then what is wrong with turning out "10, 12 or even 14 (and more!)" good kids? If we do nothing, then we will continue to have a large underclass of people who many people would consider it "socially useful" to kill because from the perspective of their pocketbook, they are "better off dead!" And what better way to rationalize such "socially useful" killing than to do it "soon enough" through a "politically correct" first-trimester abortion? - Reader David Rasmussen [1,2] See _Population Control Politics_ by Thomas Shapiro. [3] Charter stated in appendix of _The Pivot of Civilization_ by Margaret Sanger. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- (3) WHAT WORKS: PRACTICE I have watched numerous abortion debates (while still waiting for more pieces of the action myself), and I've noticed pro-lifers make horrifying mistakes. For instance, Randal Terry: "I figure that 400-500 women will die from illegal abortions every year" and Faye Wattleton: "Mr. Terry obviously shows a contempt for women (about abandoning them to death by illegal abortions)" - Now, who would be so stupid as to come off like that? Let me rephrase this: Who would fall into the best-laid traps by the pro-abortion movement? Almost all of us, I bet, even me. So, I am proposing that we open up a Drill Camp. For those who want to know how to debate like an ace, we must train them like boot camp. We'll need to find someone who really knows "pro-choice" thinking, to do this. The object is, to FLAME the cadets. Prolifers don't get ANY mercy out there, so the best thing to do, is to give them a taste of what they will run into in a debate. Make a stupid statement and get your head chopped off; ask a stupid question and learn how illogical it is VERY PAINFULLY, just like they do to you in real life. But most of all, LEARN HOW TO AVOID TRIPPING UP AND LEARN HOW TO TRIP THEM. Perhaps the cadets will see pro-abortion arguments stronger than they'd ever see on the streets - but nothing is too strong for those who debate the Big Names. So the stronger the argument, the more it's needed in BOOT CAMP. [Remember, we do have the truth on our side we should learn how to use it.] If we opened up such a net, I'd be willing to be one of the drill people. I am confident that I could debate either side of the abortion issue. - Reader Steve Chaney ----------------------------------------------------------------------- (4) READER RESPONSES: To the anonymous contributor whose wife was almost pushed into a D&C before knowing if her miscarriage was indeed complete, I wish to say I am very happy they pursued the issue and can now live the rest of their lives with peace of mind. I once picketed a N.O.W. meeting with a member of Feminists For Life who had gone through a very similar scenario. She passed alot of blood to the point of being hospitalized. The doctors were insisting that they had to do a D&C in order to remove the remaining "tissue", so she wouldn't get infected (this being about 12 or more years ago), and she absolutely refused. That "bit of tissue" indeed turned out to be a living baby. That little girl (about 5 or 6 at the time I met her) was there that day picketing with her mother. I am grateful to the anonymous contributor, because I have always worried "what if the same scenario happened to me? How would I know?". Now I know: insist on a sonogram! The answer's so simple I missed it! God Bless him and his family. - Suzanne Forgach ----------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Quote Of the Month: "I am aware that many object to the severity of my language; but is there not cause for severity? I *will* be as harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice... I am in earnest - I will not equivocate - I will not excuse - I will not retreat a single inch - AND I WILL BE HEARD." - William Lloyd Garrison +---------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Credits: | |QOM- from the first issue of his abolitionist magazine, "The | | Liberator," 1831, courtesy of Rose Recchia. | +---------------------------------------------------------------------+ Anyone desiring information on specific prolife groups, literature, tapes, or help with problems is encouraged to contact the editor. end v1n18 ------------------------------------------------------------