home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search
- Xref: sparky talk.bizarre:23382 alt.politics.bush:260 alt.politics.clinton:784
- Path: sparky!uunet!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!usc!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!emory!athena.cs.uga.edu!heath
- From: heath@athena.cs.uga.edu (Terrance Heath)
- Newsgroups: talk.bizarre,alt.politics.bush,alt.politics.clinton
- Subject: Re: BUSH
- Message-ID: <1992Jul25.155113.24197@athena.cs.uga.edu>
- Date: 25 Jul 92 15:51:13 GMT
- References: <1992Jul22.173107.4593@gn.ecn.purdue.edu> <Brt4z3.AKr@wrs.com> <1992Jul25.031517.859@ncsu.edu>
- Organization: University of Georgia, Athens
- Lines: 142
-
- In article <1992Jul25.031517.859@ncsu.edu> dsh@csl36h.csl.ncsu.edu (Doug Holtsinger) writes:
-
- >
- >I'm not sure what you stand for, but I could never advocate
- >killing a human being because they might grow up to live in
- >poverty.
- >
-
- Though I'm pro-choice, I agree. So why can't we focus on eliminating
- poverty? Sometimes this whole abortion debate..... oh nevermind.
-
- On second thought.....
-
-
- Though I am unwaveringly Pro-Choice, of late I've become
- rather frustrated with people of both sides of the abortion debate.
- Following the recent Supreme Court rulint both sides have taken to
- increased yelling about whether Roe v. Wade should be upheld or
- overturned. Meanwhile, each side ignored some important questions
- surrounding the issue.
-
- First, both sides ignore one important question : Why do so
- many women believe abortion is the only viable option when facing a
- crisis pregnancy? And what can be done to make other options more
- attractive and more viable. Nobody likes the idea of abortion (there's
- a difference between being Pro-Choice and Pro-Abortions, and almost no
- one is pro-abortion). It liek both sides are arguing over a tightrope,
- well greased by the Supreme Court and state legislatures, which women
- must cross. One side want the rope suspended, and the other side wants
- the rope cut, but neither side seems concerned with the net that ought
- to be stretched beneath the rope.
-
- Why aren't more people focusing on ways to make it easier for
- women to have and keep their children? There are very specific
- things that states and local communities can do to make choosing life
- a little easier. First, any pregnant woman needs good prenatal care
- to make sure she and the baby are healthy. Prenatal care should be
- availible to all pregnant women regardless of economic or insured
- status. If the state is concerned about infant life and welfare, it
- should get interested before the child is born, and provide prenatal
- care to mothers who cannot otherwise afford it.
-
- Once a child is born, it needs health care, and if the sate is
- intersted in preserving the child's life, it ought to be interested in
- the quality of life once the child is undeniably here. No child should
- be without good pediatric care, and the state should provide it if
- parents are unable. Health care is an important part of taking care
- of a child, and some women my not opt for abortion if they know that
- caring for the child will be made easier.
-
- Caring for a child also takes time. In an age of more fluid
- parental roles, single parent families, and double income families, it
- is time to mandate paid parental leave in the workplace, equally and
- to all parents regardless of gender. I say both parents, regardless of
- gender because we live in a time when mothers and father in poor and
- middle class families have to work to keep the family afloat; equally
- and regardless of gender, because the assumption that only a woman can
- properly care for a child is outdated and arcane.
-
- As we live in economic times that require families to have two
- incomes, forcing both parents into the job market, there is an
- increased need for childcare. Again, a state that is interested in
- protecting life ought to be interested in the quality of child care as
- if effects the quality of life. Child care shoudl be availible to
- those who can't afford it otherwise.
-
- Like it or not, we live in an age when young women, teenagers,
- are becoming mothers. Many young women have to drop out of school to
- care for their children, ending their education and thus effecting
- their ability to provide for their children. Single mothers,
- including teenageres, should have access to child care so that they
- might educate themselves and make themselves able to provide better
- lives for their children. Remember, the age of long-distance travel
- has brought an end to the days when a nearby, extended family could
- meet this need, and many teenage mothers have parents who work and
- cannot afford to stay at home and care for a child.
-
- Another method of decreasing the demand for abortion is to
- increase the information and access women have concerning birth
- control. A pregnancy that never happens can't become a crisis.
- Making sure that anyone who can get pregnant, or who can get someone
- else pregnant, has access to birth control ought to be a priority if
- abortion demand is to decrease.
-
- All of the above measures would make it easier for women
- tohave and keep their children, or to avoid pregnangy altogether. Yet
- these options are ignored by both sides of the issue. Some, usually
- conservatives from the pro-life side, are vocally opposed to some
- ideas that might help mothers, such as day-care centers and birth
- control counseling in high schools. They oppose these measures for the
- same reason they oppose legal abortion : they seek the enforcement of
- Judeo-Christian moral code. More than this, they seek to be the
- catalyst for a religious revival in this country, a revival of
- christian faith and morality.
-
- However, in opposing measures that would help mothers, and
- seeking to make abortion illegal,they are conflicting with their own
- goals. Morality can indeed be legislated. However, morality (for
- christians) stems out of faith. Where there is not christian
- faith,there is no christian morality. Faith can not be legislated.
- Therefore some pro-lifers are only succeding in half the battle.
- Behavior can be changed through legislation, but faith cannot.
-
- Some Pro-Lifers will point to the ministries and other
- agencies they have built up to help women in crisis pregnancies, and
- these efforts are to be lauded. However, it is too little. If abortion
- were to become illegal tomorrow, there would not be enough such help
- for women in crisis. Many women would be left with nowhere to turn and
- no help from anyone. Remember, when a mother suffers, a child suffers.
- Wouldn't it be better to work on creating a real system that will be
- able to help women and children and offer real options besides
- abortion and adoption (It is no easier - emotionally - to give up a
- child than it is to terminate a pregnancy), BEFORE taking away another
- option? Wouldn't it be better to open a window BEFORE slamming a door?
-
- On the Pro-Choice side of the debate there is a lot of energy
- understandably focused on vigilantly protected the right that has been
- law for the last 17 years or so. However, those on the pro-choice
- side run the risk of appearing more pro-abortion than pro-choice. I
- don't believe anyone really likes the idea of abortion, and I don't
- believe any woman makes that choice lightheartedly. Those on the
- pro-choice side would do well to focus some energy on those issues
- that would make life easier on women, families, and children.
- Admittedly, the pro-choice side is a little better about this than the
- pro-life side.
-
- So why don't people from both sides get together and discuss
- these issues, and leave the discussion of abortion out so that we
- might discuss other ways of helping women, families, and children? We
- might find that we agree more often than not, and we might actually be
- able to make a difference that cannot help but affect the number of
- women who seek abortions. We might be able to make life better for
- those born, and those yet to be born.
-
-
-
-
- --
- "Black men loving black men is THE revolutionary act!"
- -Joseph Beam_
- Terrance Heath
- heath@athena.cs.uga.edu
-