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Guest Opinion
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Abortion clause: ‘Don’t use it’
by Robert Wise
The reports in The Spectrum and the
Reporter that the abortion insurance controversy
is over with or non-existent smack of advocacy
journalism as does the charge that the Buffalo
press and television media are guilty of sensational
journalism for covering the story.
Anyone who knows this isuue, knows that it
will not go away. These reports come off as
unthinking, if not arrogant, if not both. No doubt
the unthinking involves some wishful thinking,
and what seems arrogant masks some unease.
It is true that so far this mandatory payment
has sparked no protest marches, no sit-ins, etc.
But is it not possible that people just feel at a loss
over how to move a Sub Board that peremptorily
deides such an issue when most students have
gone for the summer? They obviously don’t want
to hear from us. Student officers usually do not
run for office again, so who are they answerable
to? Irresponsibility is common enough in there
officers, but now they are dealing in death and
violating conscience. You can be sure that
resentment is broad and deep, and if not many of
us are shouting, it is because the powers that be
have apparently stopped their ears.
The whole situation recalls the day when
Congress shelved abolitionism with the Gag Rule
forbidding debate on slavery. Old John Adams,
once Presidnet and now a congressman, sent the
House into paroxysms when he dared to present a
petition from the slaves themselves. Now, if we
were to write up a petition from the unborn. . .
well, pro-abortionists don’t even like to hear that
the unborn can cry or have heartbeats. But if we
just listen to the imperative in us that has kept us
going from the start, this is the appeal that our
conscience hears: “We are the pro-chance people.
This is all we ask for, our chances. We’ll take
them. There is a chance that we may be placed in
a foster home? We’ll take it. There is a chance that
we may be deformed? We’ll take it. There is a
chance that we may be poor? A chance that we
may not get a good education? A chance that we
may have unhappy lives? We’ll take it! We are the
pro-chance people. Someday when we grow up we
may consider suicide and become pro-choice
people, or we may hear that I’m O.K. and you’re
O.K., reject suicide and become pro-life people.
But right now, we are the pro-chance people.”
To those who are outraged by Sub Board’s
attitude, or who just don’t think its policy is fair,
to the “weary”, and yes, to the indifferent here
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In response to Rosemary Warner’s letter of
September 27, 1 would like to dispel a few myths
about unwed mothers with a few personal
experiences.
I am an unmarried graduate student whose
course work was interrupted by an unplanned,
unwanted pregnancy. (As a matter of fact it was
initiated by an unwanted intercourse!) From the
outset when I first suspected I was pregnant, 1 had
decided that if the pregnancy test was positive, the
child would live, no matter what the consequences.
University Health Service gave me the ‘good’ news
and promptly asked if I needed an abortion referral.
I declined the offer but was mystified by the lack of
a similar offer to help me carry the child to term.
Although already aware of ‘Choose Life’, 1 still had
to search them out on my own. There, they offered
me prenatal care, housing, and even a family in
Buffalo to live with. But they offered me more than
this, in the way of love and understanding. The
baby’s father and paternal grandparents demanded I
abort. The ‘friends’ I told demanded 1 abort. It was a
personal affront to them for me to refuse to do so.
To this day they are very distant with me. So there I
was
alone
that is, until 1 told my parents,
finally, a few months later. They accepted my
decision to
to term completely. No one
condemned me. No one abandoned me. For 9
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months I went to class, had a peaceful pregnancy
and a beautiful baby. Giving birth for me was easy
and fulfilling. I gradually developed a loving
relationship with my baby by holding and feeding
her.
■FEE WAIVERS
disease, raise your own efforts to pay for
abortion. Have a telethon if you wish. There are
enough who believe in it that you could easily
enough cover the cost. As it is those knowledgable
about insurance are aghast at how much of this
coverage will just go into the corporate coffers.
Why then make everyone pay? Because then you
don’t have to make that effort to raise the money
yourselves. Quite aside from the violation of
conscience the policy involves, you know it will
require far more cost and effort for conscientious
objectors to go elsewhere for insurance than for
you to have to raise your own fund for abortion.
An abortion fund would require a nominal sum
from each contributor. All you need is a mailbox
and advertising once you’ve talked to a lawyer.
But conscientious objectors will have to pay
double for "alternative" insurance. You not only
violate conscience, you penalize it. Brian Weiner
and Jane Baum can write all they wish about our
freedom to go elsewhere, but their idea of
freedom is something like the idea they and others
on Sub Board had of democracy when they voted
for this in the middle of the summer without any
prior public coverage of the issue. Such is your
irresponsibility, callousness, and indifference to
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this student body and its right to know.
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will be available for
Millard Fillmore College Students
at room
DEADUNE FOR SUBMISSION
OF WAIVERS IS
FRIDAY. OCTOBER 20
Many still have not heard about it. A friend
who brought the issue up in a class discussion of
Mail waivers to MFCSA,
6 Capen Hall, Amherst Campus
Thoreau’s Civil Disobedience found that most
were learning of it for the first time!
The final word? While we have this coverage,
please, please, don’t use it.
FREE SUPPER &
SQUARE DANCE
6 P.M.
’
Since I believe that children should be nurtured
in a nuclear family with two parents and siblings I
opted to put my baby up for adoption. During the
interim period between birth and adoption, (which
lasted two months), my daughter was cared for in a
foster home. I visited her almost every oilier day and
brought her home with me for about a week and a
half. She was adopted by a family with two young
boys who were thrilled with her.
I love my daughter very much. 1 want to express
this love in. a letter I am permitted to write to her.
So far I have written 10 pages. I’m one quarter of
the way through the first draft.
Since I gave my daughter up for adoption I have
gone back to my studies and have consistently done
A and B work. For me life isn’t over. It’s just begun.
So far the only side effects of this pregnancy
have been, lux stomach muscles, enlarged breasts and
an unquenchable craving to have another baby.
If you read Rosemary Warner’s letter carefully
you see that the moral course of action by her
implications in an out of wedlock pregnancy
situation, is to abort. (Since she seems to imply that
both adoption and single motherhood are immoral
choices') By her standards the love and sacrifices I
made for my baby were a waste of lime. But her
standards are wrong. Love really does count. My
daughter is alive. She is loved. The other young
unwed mothers I’ve met who kept their children love
their children also. What they need the most is a
loving attitude from society at large to help them
over the emotional hurdles they face. It’s all a test of
love on our part.
So girls, don’t let men, the medical
establishment, feminists, or any one else manipulate
you into having an abortion. Pregnancy is the natural
process by which the species homo sapiens
reproduces itself. Clinical abortion is the unnatural
process by which medical establishment enriches
itself.
To be sure, this is a sacrifice. But the love I havt.
expended personally has returned to me and
enriched me a thousand times over. I have learned to
love so rriuch better. If you need free help call
‘Choose Life’at 824-4709.
nothing happens by
Oh, by the
chance. You either love humanity by choice or else
are indifferent to it by default. There is no middle
ground. Nothing happens by chance.
Name withheld
2 Hayes A
5:30 pm to 8:30 pm
life
To the Editor.
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A word now to those who support the
imposition of this payment. Do you know what
conscience is! First, it is not some synonym for
laissez-faire. Second, you respect it. You do not
ask others to pay for death as if it were business as
usual. The doctrine of the common good cannot
justify this. If you really believe that pregnancy is
Sunday,
Octobers, 1978
Sweethome
•
Choose
is a word to rouse you. Recall the saying, “Where
your treasure is. there also lies your heart.” One
dollar of your treasure is now going to cover
abortions. Is your heart going with it? Your moral
approval? Is your silence the tacit consent they
are saying it is? Follow your heart rather, or your
sense of fairness, and let us reverse this flagrant
decision. For the sake of those young heartbeats,
or at least, for the sake of conscience.
A petition is now being circulated by a
Student Rights of Conscience Group. When you
are approached, take a moment to look at it and if
you agree, sign it.
United Methodist
Church
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-rJ*
V.
1900Sweelhome Road
Sponsored by Wesley Foundation
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