file: /pub/resources/text/ProLife.News/1994: PLN-0406.TXT ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Life Communications - Volume 4, No. 6 April, 1994 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This newsletter is intended to provide articles and news information to those interested in Pro-Life issues. All submissions should be sent to the editor, Steve or the assistant editor Sean ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1) Our Own Roger Taney is Retiring By Paul Greenberg [ For those folks who are not Americans, please permit a little one-sidedness for those of us in the land of round doorknobs. This is my way of announcing that one of our supreme court justices, Harry Blackmun, author of the infamous _Roe vs. Wade_ is retiring. His opinion in _Roe_ overturned every state law in the United States, legalizing the killing of unborn humans throughout all nine months of pregnancy. President Clinton is not expected to even consider a replacement who opposes abortion. Ed.] Indulge me in a momentary historical fantasy. Suppose that Roger Brooke Taney had not gone down in American history as the principal author of what is now almost universally acknowledged as the worst decision in the history of American jurisprudence, _Dred Scott vs. Sandford_ in 1857. Suppose the country had been shaped in the image of Chief Justice Taney's decision, which decreed that slaves could be carried anywhere in the Union and that Negroes could not be citizens under the Constitution, for they were "regarded as being of an inferior order and altogether unfit to associate with the white race... and so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect..." These were not persons, according to the high court, but property. Stay with me, this may take some imagination. Now suppose that, instead of these words exciting contempt and derision, and moral horror, they were thought to represent a bulwark of American rights, a new birth of freedom. In that case, there might still have been those Americans who did not approve of slavery, and perhaps even demonstrated against it, but suppose they were outnumbered by far? Not by fervent disciples of human slavery, but by the mass of citizens who felt uneasy when the subject came up, and who themselves would never own a slave, but who did not feel they should interfere with another's right to own one. Such a delicate question, they felt, should be left to individual conscience - not dictated by the state. And finally, suppose that Roger B. Taney, full of years and honors, were to announce that he would retire at the end of the Supreme Court's current term. What would some forgettable mediocrity of a president have said on that occasion? Would he have identified himself with the decision in _Dred Scott_? And would the departing chief justice have been hailed as the Conscience of the Court? Would the grand old man have explained at one point that, while not in favor of slavery personally, he had acted to protect the rights of others? Too rich a fantasy? Not if one listens to what is being said on the retirement of Justice Harry Blackmun, author of _Roe V. Wade_, the Dred Scott decision of our time. _Roe_ made it clear that the unborn child - fetus, if that term is more comfortable - has no rights that the state is bound to respect. And like _Dred Scott_, _Roe_ was handed down in the name of an individual right. Roger Taney's decision in _Dred Scott_ was based on the Fifth amendment's guarantee that no person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law. Justice Blackmun based _Roe_ on a vague right of privacy nowhere spelled out in the Constitution but "broad enough to encompass a woman's decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy." Of course _Roe_ does not condemn millions to a lifetime of slavery, but rather to no life at all - or, if one prefers, termination. (Euphemism is the first sign that an advocate feels queasy about what he's really advocating.) At his news conference with Justice Blackmun last week, this president repeated his support for _Roe_ in his own forgettable way: "I - you know, of course, that I agree with the decision and I think it's an important one in a very difficult and complex area of our nation's life." It might be noted that James Buchanan, the forgettable president in 1857, was all for the decision in _Dred Scott_ too, exalting that it would make Kansas "as much a slave state as Georgia or South Carolina." At last the slavery question was resolved and the agitation over it would end. - just as Harry Blackmun's opinion in _Roe_ was supposed to end any dispute about abortion. Speaking of his decision in _Roe_, Justice Blackmun once explained: "People misunderstand. I am not for abortion. I hope my family never has to face such a decision." Roger Taney's defenders in the more poisonous groves of academe explain that the chief justice wasn't ruling for slavery, but only interpreting the Constitution. People misunderstood. By all reports, Mr. Justice Blackmun is a nice man, and a baseball fan to boot. Chief Justice Taney doubtless led an exemplary private life and had his hobbies, too. And both handed down other, better decisions besides the single one that history will indelibly link to their names. Perhaps that is the essence of this fantasy: In a society that has lost its moral bearings, strange and terrible decisions can be made, and can come to seem quite ordinary, even praiseworthy. Paul Greenberg is the Pulitzer Prize winning Editorial Page Editor of the _Arkansas Democrat-Gazette_. His address is > Paul Greenberg > c/o Arkansas Democrat-Gazette > PO Box 2221 > Little Rock AR 72203 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) On the International Front: *Dublin, Ireland:* New Irish Medical Council Pro-Life Recent elections to the Irish Medical Council drew a lot of interest: Ireland's doctors voted in much greater numbers than in the past and had a larger selection of candidates from which to choose. Abortion was seen as a key issue in the election. The two candidates who received most votes were both women, Professor Patricia Casey and Dr. Dara Scally, both known to be strongly opposed to abortion, although neither campaigned on the issue. *Glasgow, Scotland:* Courageous Soldier Wins in Court Major Helen Homewood became pregnant in 1981; when faced with the decision to keep either her child or her commission, she chose to accept a forced resignation. This month, she won a record $441,000 in compensation after a ruling declared that she had been discriminated against. In its judgment the court said the former major was an exceptional officer who could have reached the rank of colonel by the year 2000 if she had not faced discrimination. After the ruling, the ministry said it was considering appealing against the decision. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) On the National Front *Washington, DC:* Elders Bemoans `Contraceptive Equality' Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders repeatedly commented before a Congressional panel how the high price of Wyeth Lab's Norplant and UpJohn's Depo Provera deprive poor women of Contraceptive equality. While calling the abortifacient drugs innovative products, she testified how these "breakthroughs in ... contraceptive technology" were priced beyond the reach of the working poor. Typical kits cost $365, plus about $300 for implantation. Elders commented that in the third world, bulk sales to population agencies run as low as $18 per woman, and average around $23. (We wonder who's paying for them??) On another note, the Clinton Administration overturned a ten-year policy of not paying for abortions overseas. Though polls show that the new policy is opposed by the majority of Americans, an immediate five-year, $75 million grant was made to the International Planned Parenthood Federation and a $40 million grant to the UN Population Fund, which gives aid to the People's Republic of China for forced abortions and sterilizations. *Oceanside, CA:* _Sex Respect_ Accepted Despite criticism from Planned Parenthood, the abstinence-based curriculum called "Sex Respect" was approved for use in the local public schools. The curriculum emphasizes virginity until marriage. _Sex Respect_ is the largest abstinence-based program in the United States, and has released the results of a five-year study involving 29 schools. It showed that only 5% of girls who had taken the program became pregnant one or two years later, compared to 9% of the girls in the control group! Since 10% of American teenage girls become pregnant annually, this represents a drop of 40-50%. Not surprisingly enough, the local PP Director was quoted as saying that _Sex Respect_ "doesn't work," and is "riddled with medical inaccuracies." The studies done on the program were not quoted. *Yonkers, NY:* Pro-Life Encylical Should Be a Blockbuster Cardinal John J. O'Connor of New York commented at the annual Respect for Life Institute on Pope John Paul II's expected encyclical on pro-life issues. He said that he spoke with the pope about the encyclical, and found him becoming "stronger and stronger in his denunciations of intrinsic evils," while also becoming "more and more loving" toward individuals who fall into those evils. As the moral and religious leader of the Catholic Church, such an encyclical will be "binding in conscience on Catholics all over the world." The Cardinal also commented how Pro-life workers should not attack each other over issues such as Operation Rescue or whether to support imperfect legislation. "This is a big movement," he said. "There's room for all." *Boston, Massachusetts:* Abortion Permission Denial Overturned In March, the MA State Appeals Court ruled that a pregnant woman (Jane A.) who has the mental abilities of a 4-year-old can get an abortion because it would be too traumatic for her to have a baby. This decision overturned a Suffolk County ruling which stated argued that the 30-year-old woman would not consent to an abortion were she competent to make the decision. Jane has been recorded as commenting that she wanted to "keep the baby inside my belly" but also to have the "baby stop growing inside my belly." Her guardians testified that Jane "would not understand or tolerate, and would not wish to tolerate the accelerating physical trials of pregnancy and childbirth." A court-appointed doctor said that Jane's trauma could be minimized if the abortion is handled carefully, noting that mental harm from carrying the pregnancy to term were "a thousandfold" greater. It is not known if the abortion has taken place. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4) Salmonella Used to Create Experimental Birth Control Vaccine Researcher Roy Curtiss of Washington University in St. Louis reported that Salmonella bacteria have been genetically altered to produce an oral birth control vaccine that primes the immune system to reject sperm before conception. The vaccine causes a harmless, temporary infection in the intestine that triggers antibodies against genetic components of sperm that have been spliced into the bacteria, said Unaltered salmonella bacteria are more commonly known to cause food poisoning, but Curtiss is using the genetically engineered forms to produce vaccines against hepatitis B and malaria. Human trials of the hepatitis B vaccine have begun, and the Army plans to begin tests of the malaria vaccine this winter. Tests of the contraceptive vaccine have been done only in mice so far. But the results from the mouse studies suggest that a single dose of the vaccine might prevent conception for several months or longer. He also claims that the effect would be reversible. "The idea now would be you don't get your booster, and within a year or so you can conceive again," he said at a meeting of the Council for the Advancement of Science Writing. Curtiss expressed some concern about what he said was the potential for abuse of the salmonella birth control vaccine. "You could put it in the milk or water and immunize everybody," he said. "You could think of government or some other entity misusing that," perhaps by secretly sterilizing an entire population. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5) Clinton Crackdown Continues By Other Means Clinton issued a federal order in December ordering states to begin paying for abortions for poor women who are victims of rape or incest. Several states have said that their own laws, regulations or constitutions prevent them from complying. But the Clinton administration maintains that a federal order takes precedence. Michigan, Montana, Utah, Arkansas, Colorado, Louisiana, Kentucky, North Dakota, Oklahoma and South Dakota went on record saying they would reject the order. Faced with losing billions in Medicaid funding, Arizona has since backed down and decided to comply. Since December, Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) and other abortion advocates said it will sue states that refuse to go along with the Clinton order. They have kept that promise. Planned Parenthood is suing to force at least two states to obey a federal order to pay for Medicaid abortions. This month, lawsuits were filed against Michigan and Montana both states. A lawsuit is also planned against Utah. The director of litigation for the PPFA commented to the press that other states may be targeted as well. The issue is one of legal precedence: can the US federal government order a state to pay for abortions, thereby forcing them to ignore its own constitution or other legal barriers? We shall see. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 6) Reader Responses: v4n5: Is there no way to detect conception? 1) It is not necessarily true that conception cannot be detected before implantation. Serum levels of HCG (human chorionic gonadotropin produced by the embryo) are detectable 7-9 days after conception- implantation occurs around 6-7 days, so there may be some overlap. I am not aware of any definitive research that has proven this one way or the other. (Urine pregnancy tests are less sensitive and are not positive until 2-3 weeks after conception.) 2) It seems to me that the AMA-ACOG definition of pregnancy beginning at implantation is arbitrary, at best. Just the fact that a certain percentage of embryos are spontaneously lost without implanting does not mean that they did not exist- just as the fact that a certain number of miscarriages and stillbirths occur at later gestational ages does not mean that other fetuses are not alive then. I think that to accept the AMA-ACOG definition as "scientifically accurate" is simply to accept a convention, not a compelling scientific argument. It is a convention that conveniently avoids the ethical and moral issues raised by "contraceptives" that may act after conception, as well as of artificial reproductive technologies that involve extracorporeal fertilization (conception). - Joe Stanford, MD, MSPH Department of Family and Preventive Medicine, University of Utah -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- v4n5: Posting to Abortion-related Newsgroups If someone doesn't have the ability to post to a newsgroup like talk.abortion and would like me to post a message for them, I'm willing. - Jerome -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- v4n4: Sex-based abortion bans I recently caught (and taped) the last half-hour of a very interesting segment of "Investigative Reporting" on the Arts & Entertainment Network (A&E), a cable TV network. The segment, called "Let Her Die", was solely devoted to the covering of the unbelievable traditions of female infanticide in India, and how the Indian government is ostensibly trying to stop the practice. The show reported it as "every Indian family's dream" to have a son, and girls are routinely aborted before birth, or killed outright after birth. A commonly stated justification is money. Families living in poverty (the norm) typically voice concerns about the tremendous costs associated with raising a girl, e.g. dowrys, clothing, etc. Ironically, dowrys have been illegal in India for many years. A less talked about justification is the apparent classification of females in India as second-class citizens, or actually even worse. At any rate, the program went on to show examples of the booming sex- determination industry. They even pointed out the fact that the ultrasound machine is the most prevalent health-care related machine in the country. They interviewed many people who had killed their daughters, even followed a woman who was pregnant, and who vowed to kill her baby if it was a girl. [Incidently they finished the show by disclosing that the woman gave birth to *twin* girls, and then killed them both. The last scene of the broadcast was of the two baby girls.] They also interviewed Indian doctors who decried the practice, and talked about how the acceptance of sex-based selections could mean the end of the female race in India, how it was a crime, etc. All of the arguments presented were exactly the same as those we offer against abortions in general. VERY interesting, sickening, unbelievable. - Greg Welch ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Quote of the Month: "In _Roe v. Wade_, the Court recognized a 'guarantee of personal privacy' which 'is broad enough to encompass a woman's decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy.' We are now of the view that, in terming this right fundamental, the Court in _Roe_ read the earlier opinions upon which it based its decision much too broadly." - Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist, joined by Justices White, Scalia and Thomas in his June 29 1992, dissenting statements to the _Casey_ Decision. +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Credits: | | 1 - From a recent _Wilmington News Journal_, many thanks to reader Bob Rahe.| | Also carried in the April 8 _Arkansas Democrat-Gazette_. | | 2 - From the April 4, 1994 issue of _The Irish Emigrant_ (No.374). To | | subscribe, contact Liam Ferrie | | 3 - Many thanks to reader Eric Ewanco. Some information also came from the | | April edition of _The Trumpet_, newsletter for Collegians Activated to | | Liberate Life (CALL) 1605 Monroe St. Suite 107, Madison WI 53711 USA. | | 4 - Many thanks to reader Mike Perry. From the Tue November 2, 1993 edition | | of the _Pittsburgh Post-Gazette_. | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ Anyone desiring information on specific prolife groups, literature, tapes, or help with problems is encouraged to contact the editor.