Letter to the Editor
Women’s rights
Published Thursday, July 24, 2008
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To the editor:
I have a few things to say in response to a recent letter by Joe Smith of Fairbanks regarding Sen. Obama’s campaign: “abortion is the pre-eminent issue of our day. More than 1 million people are killed in the U.S. each year through ‘big-business’ abortion.
“Voters should not let themselves be sweet-talked by such politicians who seem wonderful but who reject what America stands for.”
My friend, abortion is not the preeminent issue of our day. AIDS, poverty, war, economic recession, limited natural resources, growing electricity and heating bills — these are issues my generation is confronted with. Your objection to abortion is but a symptom of the outright and blatant oppression of women’s rights. Supposed “pro-birth” groups and folks like Joe Smith are only interested in one “life” — that of the unborn. What about the life of the woman?
I ask that you put your thinking cap back on and ponder the meaning of “life” for a moment. The Webster’s Dictionary defines life as “the quality that distinguishes a vital and functional being from a dead body or inanimate matter.” Living and breathing women, we are functioning beings, right? Who are you to value something inside of me as being any more important than the body that carries it? I already exist. My life matters too and deciding whether or not to give birth is my decision to make — and not yours or anyone else’s. You are oversimplifying a rather complex topic in order to make a political statement, a poor and over-done political statement at best.
Did you happen to notice how many of those abortions or “killings” as you call them, were a result of incest, rape, assault or out of medical necessity? Get off your high horse and come back to reality. If Joe really wants to do something about the number of abortions, why not petition his government to allow easier access to sex education and affordable contraceptives?
The America I know and love protects my right to be free of tyranny — and I’m pretty sure my uterus has that right, too.
Community Discussion
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Naomi Horne, that's one of the best letters to the editor I've read in a long time, and you are 100 percent right on all counts — and I'm a dude.
Note to politicians: I'm pro-choice, and I vote.
I agree with SlyArcticFox- awesome letter. I would have resorted to name calling, swearing and sputtering out of frustration in responding to Joe Smith. You saved me from having to do that. Thank you!
I agree. Before we legislate what I'm doing with my body any more, how about we eliminate the ridiculous abstinence only sex education and start teaching people something that is going to help in the real world?
Every human being that has the
right ingredients of life has
entered existience.
Wow, Naomi Horne, you are my heroine. Thank you for writing this letter and speaking for those of us who aren't quite as eloquent in our letter-writing abilities!
Are you against abortion? THEN DON'T HAVE ONE. I respect people who don't agree with abortion - you have the right to an opinion... until your opinion starts affecting my life and restricting the opportunities that are available to me.
Nobody has the right to tell me what I can and cannot do with my body. Research shows that fetuses do not feel pain until the second trimester, and you know what? A fetus is not a baby. I will not feel guilty for causing my body to expel a mass of cells which contain the POTENTIAL for human life, but are not yet a human life.
I hate to echo what's already been said, but.......
Great letter.
i'm pro life and i vote
Kudos!!! Applause!!! Outstanding letter!
Protesters...Please stop picketing, do something productive to help the children already here. You know the ones whos mothers chose to have them even in the face of economic poverty.. they can use your help more. Get them better educational oportunities, affordable childcare worth taking them to, Housing worth living in, health & dental care Mom and/or Dad can afford!
Or is it only the ones who aren't here yet that are important to you?
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I'm for Life!
Smoking causes cancer so don't do it. Having sex causes babies so don't do it. How's that for cheap birth control?
If abortion is not an important issue in this nation, how come getting a conservative judge approved is nigh impossible with a Democrat majority in the US Senate? Judges have been literally waiting for approval for years, but the majority party has a litmus test?
I wonder if the letter writer believes that a majority of abortions are due to rape, incest, or the mother's health. I believe that the majority of abortions are done as a means of birth control.
And finally, why should the taxpayer who morally disagrees with birth control abortion be forced to pay for it?
I totally understand what you are saying and I hear ya. My opinion on the matter is that abortion isn't an option for me (it tugs at my moral fiber if you will) however it might be the right option for someone else. Each circumstance is different and should be treated as such. The whole point is that it's my choice not to have an abortion! People only focus on what they want to! I'll keep my freedom thank you, and leave the judging to my higher power.
Roe verse Wade, 1973, thirty five years and the argument continues.
Glacieries, why should the tax payer who morally disagrees with a war be forced to pay for it?
Keep it safe, and keep it legal. Protect a woman's right to choose.
Whether abortion is legal or not, an unwanted pregnancy remains just that. My mom told me all kinds of horror stories about the lengths some women would go to in order to end an unwanted pregnancy back in the days when abortion was illegal. Women who were single, women who were married and already had children. Women who were the victims of rape or incest. Just plain women whose birth control method failed them. Horror stories. Throwing themselves down a flight of stairs, drinking all kinds of horrible concoctions, inserting wires through their cervix to pierce the uterus, going to some back alley abortionist and ending up raped by the abortionist, infected by the unsanitary conditions, or just plain dead by some botched up butcher job. Those who are anti-choice are in effect, advocating that we go back to these dreadful days.
Keep it safe. And keep it legal.
Agreed Lady, keep it safe, keep it legal.
Abortion is still a huge and relevant issue in politics today because it is morally polarizing. Abortion is NEVER a good thing - it's a tragic option that only happens because of tragic circumstances (whether it's rape, health, or simply "birth control").
Everyone always points to the extreme cases in making their arguments - i.e. rape or irresponsible birth control. Women not wanting their children and abortion has been around since the beginning if time - just different methods and degrees of success. Channel the passionate energy somewhere useful: focus on preventing abortions before they happen - prevent unwanted births. There will always be the tragic case but the truth is most people are opposed to abortion because of the irresponsible people that do use it as a fail safe birth control. I've known those people just as I've known others who had to make a heart-wrenching decision with a baby they desperately wanted. I wouldn't ever say outlaw abortion but I resent multiple abortions just because you didn't want a baby and didn't use birth control.
It seems like there's no win on this issue - you have the aborted baby or the neglected, abused child...
Oh, and, whatever...I don't believe any woman really believes it's just a bunch of tissue - you keep telling yourself that. Whether you believe abortion is right or wrong, that's still a baby - it's just not born yet, so on come the arguments about viability, etc, etc. Please!
Dr. C. hates to be an echo-chamber for the other posters above, but I read that letter and said "Wow! You go girl!"
Would it be more morally justified if a woman were to be forced to follow through with a pregnancy unwillingly, ignoring her volitional right, than to have an abortion?
Under circumstances of medical necessity it seems hardly a good idea to put the decision to abort in the hands of the voting/taxpayer populace on the grounds of morals, rather than the expertise of a physician.
Pro-life supporters seem to arrogantly "know whats best" for mothers, but I'm curious, what do they derive their knowledge from? Personal experience? Research? Or is it just uninformed opinion?
Pro-choice, and worry about the plank in your own eye.
Skagdog says "I'm for Life! Smoking causes cancer so don't do it. Having sex causes babies so don't do it. How's that for cheap birth control?"
Sounds great to me! Get all y our male friends to go along with it and the problem will go away. All those women seeking abortions didn't get pregnant by themselves. . .
I'm Pro Choice and I vote!
I don't want to be divisive but I would like to share what I found out about fetal pain.
------------
FETAL PAIN
YES AND BY 8 WEEKS
By 8 weeks? Show me!
By this age the neuro-anatomic structures are present. What is needed is (1) a sensory nerve to feel the pain and send a message to (2) the thalamus, a part of the base of the brain, and (3) motor nerves that send a message to that area. These are present at 8 weeks. The pain impulse goes to the thalamus. It sends a signal down the motor nerves to pull away from the hurt.
Give an example.
Try sticking an infant with a pin and you know what happens. She opens her mouth to cry and also pulls away.
Try sticking an 8 week old human fetus in the palm of his hand. He opens his mouth and pulls his hand away.
A more technical description would add that changes in heart rate and fetal movement also suggest that intrauterine manipulations are painful to the fetus. Volman & Pearson, "What the Fetus Feels," British Med. Journal, Jan. 26, 1980, pp. 233-234.
http://www.abortionfacts.com/online_book...
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My mother once told me she hated my guts, that if abortion had been legal she would have had an abortion. Needless to say, I am soooo pro-life. I may not be significant to my mother and I'm not rich or famous so the world couldn't care less about be, but I'm glad I was given the chance to live and to contribute to life. I have 3 grown children and 2 grandchildren and they love me...and that's good enough for me. ~aReader
"If Joe really wants to do something about the number of abortions, why not petition his government to allow easier access to sex education and affordable contraceptives?"
Definately the best part of this letter. I am mostly pro-life myself, but I agree with her on some of her points. Someone here recently referred to the "harpies" on Airport Way picketing. My question is, don't they realize abortion is not a problem, but a symptom? The problem is unwanted pregnancy. If those folks donated half the time they spend uselessly wearing down the sidewalk to educating young people and promoting contraception and safe sex, they could probably actually make a meaningful difference in the number of abortions performed.
Do those protesters really think they're going to change the opinion people hold on the topic, or do they do it to make themselves feel better?
Life, according to scientific definition, will have several different characteristics: it will grow, respirate, eat, reproduce, etc.
An unfertilized egg is the potential for life, but not life. If put in a womb, it will never develop. It is "potential", "static".
A FERTILIZED egg WILL grow, have its own processes, and eventually reproduce.
An unfertilized egg will have the same DNA as the mother. A FERTILIZED egg will have its own DNA which says it is a human (not a dog, cat, mouse) AND that it is a different human than the mother.
From the moment it was fertilized, it started its own life cycle. It is living, it is human, it is different from the mother. It has its own identity (DNA).
It has its OWN HEARTBEAT by day 22 (early in the first trimester when most abortions take place). It has its OWN metabolism. It relies on the mother, but it is NOT the mother. At that point the mother is ending the life of another person (according to scientific definition and DNA), not just making a choice for HER, but for her and someone else.
We readily recognize this is true when it involves, say, a spotted owl's egg. We will decry the loss of life from a fertilized egg of another species that we value, but it is not convenient for us to recognize the same of our own, because that means that we have to live for someone else for 9 months. We do not value that life. We resent when others value that life. We tell them our rights because we do not want to be inconvenienced.
Life trumps inconvenience, however.
It is an inconvenience for less than a year. I would hope that we all would be noble enough to offer some of our lives to save another's.
This might make the mother upset. It is not easy to be pregnant when you do not want to be, but killing someone else is not the answer. Life is filled with inconvenience, pain, difficulties for all of us. We do not live in a perfect world, we cannot make this easy for people. The answer is to be noble enough in character to do the RIGHT thing, not the EASY thing.
As for "medical necessity"...that is untrue. Things that threaten the life of the mother nearly always happen late in pregnancy when technology can take over.
No, most abortions are for convenience.
Killing a life to make a life easier is not the answer. We have to be honest as to what that "bunch of cells" really is. This “group of cells” is not the potential for life, but is actually on its own life spectrum. We recognize that in children we WANT to have, we recognize that in endangered species. We recognize that when our favorite dog is pregnant with puppies we want to sell. It is absolutely foolish of us to try to ignore this just because it is convenient for us to do so. We must be more logical than that.
BTW, I am pro life AND a female.
"Did you happen to notice how many of those abortions or “killings” as you call them, were a result of incest, rape, assault or out of medical necessity?"
Partly. 97% of all abortions are elective. If they are done out of medical necessity, they are so calculated and not included in the "elective" field.
With "rights" should come responsibility for the "choice" made and accountability for that decision.
Archer,
Thank you. Perfect.
It stops being your uterus and becomes the baby's home when you get pregnant. Not fair, but most things aren't.
Honey-- Re-read your Websters definition of life. Do you carry "life" in you or death?
And just to let you know Sweety-- I love and have adopted those "rape, incest, unwanted" babies!!
To quote a VERY famous person" A persons a person no matter how small." Of course,Love, you'd have to have a little one to read to in order to know that. My prayers are with you!
And while we're at it:
So-called "partial birth abortions" are performed on fetuses with no functioning brain. No brain = no pain to the fetus. A way of relieving the pregnant woman of the burden of carrying a brain dead fetus to term and having it born brain dead and die. These are extremely rare procedures,a nd hellish for the families involved.
Anti-abortion folks tend to change their tune quickly enough if it is their 13 year old daughter or granddaughter pregnant.
Abortion is indeed a symptom. Head-i