If abortions are socially induced, provide unbiased alternatives
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Last Wednesday night, Feminists for Life President Serrin Foster lectured on campus, following a week of dedicated advertising by the Carnegie Mellon Respect Life Club and the subsequent marring of the group’s posters around the university. Fearing that my at-times overzealous, leftward-leaning opinions as Forum editor of this newspaper preceded me, I treaded carefully as I entered the packed lecture room in Doherty Hall. But what I encountered was not the worn-out pro-life versus pro-choice argument that I expected; instead, Foster made a call for change on our own campus — and unintentionally opened the door for the acknowledgment of an additional change that is needed here as well.
Foster is sassy — and that made her very likable. She was aware that, while the majority of those present at the lecture likely were against abortion and agreed with the views of her organization, others might not. She poked fun at herself while proposing some fairly radical ideas — among them, that the claim that abortion as a potential means of controlling the world’s population and hunger issues is unfounded, citing American obesity — and poking fun at her own weight — as proof against this claim. While I appreciated her tone of both intellectualism and saucy angst, I found her dismissal of several significant counterarguments inaccurate and irresponsible.
Feminists for Life (www.feministsforlife.org) insists that “women deserve better choices” than abortion, arguing that abortions are thrust upon women by social and economic situations. Foster proposed that the conversation shouldn’t be about the pros and cons of abortion, or about the choice between a woman’s rights and those of her unborn child. Rather, a different discussion is needed — one about how to change the realities of women’s lives so that they don’t need to have abortions.
This is true. The decision to have a child is often influenced by one’s relationships (with the father, with her family, with the campus community) and financial ability to support another human being. But simply acknowledging this is not enough.
Foster’s suggested solution is to create an on-campus resource center to support parents in a variety of ways, as she cited evidence stating that almost half of all abortions are performed on college women. This would be great; any health center catering to the needs of the student body should always be welcome. But even here, money is tight, and spending resources on something for a very small percentage of the population is unlikely to be economically viable.
Regardless, if it’s logistically feasible, I support the idea of this center, and would be happy to help make it a reality. But it must be a non-partisan center, one that perpetuates no other agenda than to assist women, their partners, and their children. Foster seemed to agree with this when I made this argument in a question following her lecture. But what Foster is unaware of — which is not her fault, but is an important point to raise nonetheless — is that the campus community has been split over the abortion debate as of late.
While the majority of my political opinions tend to be liberal, I do understand and sometimes agree with some socially conservative viewpoints. My views are surely not the most radical or liberal on this campus, and as such, I feel comfortable saying that my opinions do not only represent those of a small, feeble minority at Carnegie Mellon. That said, several recent movements related to the on-campus debate about abortion have not been progressive and serve to diminish the chances for a non-partisan health center gaining any credence on this liberal leaning campus.
On Election Day, the Respect Life Club set up 3700 popsicle-stick, cross-shaped, imitation grave markers for aborted babies — right next to the Carnegie Mellon Students for Barack Obama campaigning table. Before this, the group handed out cupcakes for the birthdays of aborted babies, and several members of the group taped over their mouths to pay tribute to those who were never given voices as part of the National Pro-Life Silent Day of Solidarity in October.
Abortion is always a relevant issue to debate, and a college campus is an important venue on which to discuss it. But these three actions were morbid: By their offensive and saddening nature, the group’s actions alienated those who were not necessarily in agreement with it — and even some that were. This was an ineffective means of argumentation. To persuade your opponents that your opinion is the correct one, you should not alienate them or shut them out of the debate, which these actions did by insinuating that the others — those who have taken friends to have abortions performed, those who value the legality of abortion, those who have no opinion on the issue, those who wondered what the group was doing when its members sat silently near the popsicle-stick crosses — are murderers, or simply too irrational to engage in a responsible debate.
I do not mean to attack the Carnegie Mellon Respect Life Club. I have an incredible amount of respect for the group, particularly its president, senior design major Jessie Kaercher, for taking an often unpopular stance on an incredibly difficult issue to debate. Perhaps I’m biased by my affinity for opinionated speech and direct communication between opposing parties, but I’m all for more groups being active on campus, particularly ones with unique or new biases. The Respect Life Club should be commended for forcing the issue of abortion into the open on this campus — but it must tread carefully, and should be careful not to offend members of the community who either disagree with its message or disagree with the medium. If we are to successfully install measures on campus that will provide guidance and resources for pregnant women (and I argue that this center should include information and counseling for those who choose abortion), regardless of the economic feasibility of this concept, this must be done as a process separate from strictly pro-life measures.
Foster is right: If women are forced to have or not to have an abortion based on societal influences, let’s do the best we can to remove those factors from their decision-making process. A clinic is not a popsicle-stick graveyard. An on-campus daycare is not red duct tape sealing the mouths of students. Let’s keep it that way.
jessica thurston
Thank you to everyone for your comments - it's really great seeing an active discussion board. If you would like to submit a letter to the editor to be considered for publishing in the first issue of the spring semester, please e-mail your letter to forum@thetartan.org.
refocus the debate
i never said we shouldn't teach them about the consequences of their actions. what i'm calling for is education that provides them with the whole picture. obviously abstinence is the healthiest possible choice. any comprehensive sex educator who knows what they're doing will know to tell adolescents, "this is exactly what happens to you when you get chlamydia, HIV, herpes, pregnant, etc." they also should be taught exactly how a fetus is aborted at each stage of the pregnancy so that they will be more aware of what is actually happening when they choose what G. so charmingly called "the easy way out." (for the record: abortion is not an easy choice for most women who choose it, which is why clinics tend to mandate counseling for those patients).
Kasey
Curious,
I was just pointing out that there is a serious double standard in play here. Whether or not the government considers an unborn baby to have rights is dependent on the circumstances under which it is killed. If a fetus can't be considered a human, then those men shouldn't be charged with the murder of the unborn babies. After all, had the baby's own mother decided to kill it there would be no legal consequences.
An interesting question: What if the father kills the unborn child? It's an abortion from the other parent - should he then be prosecuted? After all, it might have been inconvenient to him for the child to be born.
The double standard lies in prosecuting someone for the killing of an unborn child and not prosecuting a woman who "chooses" to kill her unborn child.
G.
I do agree that the debate needs to be refocused - however, not only on sex ed. Most people realize that you can get pregnant if you have sex. Most people realize that birth control is not 100% effective. However, most people also realize that there is an easy and largely socially acceptable way to shirk the potential consequences of living the "hook-up" lifestyle. These people have been educated about how to have "safer" sex, why to get tested for STDs, and about women's "rights" to terminate their pregnancy. In this culture it's widely accepted that young people will have sex with multiple partners and will likely have to face an unplanned pregnancy or STD one day - rather than being taught that this kind of lifestyle is unhealthy, they are taught how to do it "safely" and how to deal with the consequences if they don't. We need to shift the educational system to reveal the riskiness of this lifestyle instead of focusing on damage control. While teenagers admittedly do not respond well to "holier-than-thou" attitudes, maybe they would listen if presented with facts about the risks that they are taking. Similarly, the culture that we live in today promotes rabid individualism and, with that, a fair degree of selfishness. In our culture, it's everyone for themselves. People aren't taught to value life or to take responsibility for their actions. Our culture encourages people to take the easy way out, often even going so far as to scorn people who do decide to take responsibility. What we need is a cultural shift, a shift to morality and personal responsibility, and that needs to be reflected in the education we present to teenagers and young adults.
curious
Kasey,
Can you please clarify your thoughts in the following paragraph? Your argument is unclear.
"There have been cases, such as the Peterson or Davis murder cases, where the fathers of unborn children killed the pregnant mother and were also charged with murder for the unborn babies. Now I have to ask all those pro-choice people and law makers, how can this be justified? Is it because they really care for those unborn children or is it only because a woman has been killed? After all, according to the law, most of those fetuses weren't human yet."
Thank you.
quick comment
I was very nearly aborted. I am obviously grateful that that did not happen, however I am just as grateful that my mother had the choice.
refocus the debate
for you, life may start at conception. however, others may believe that life starts when the fetus is born and takes a breath. you will be hard-pressed to find an American who doesn't believe that on some fundamental level murder is wrong. however, not everyone will come to agree on whether abortion is murder or not. and regardless of how legal it is, it is going to happen. coathangers were once used as medical objects. let's not let that happen again.
rather than focus on abortion, however, it would be far more productive to focus on educating young Americans about sex, pregnancy, and STDs. abstinence-only sex education is not working and will never work because it is based on the holier-than-thou principle that grown-ups know what is best for adolescents and therefore will make decisions for the latter party. teenagers are perfectly capable of choosing. they do it everyday. unfortunately, because adults don't give them credit for having this capacity, young people are making uninformed decisions and facing disastrous consequences. many do not know basic information such as how and when to use a condom, how often to get tested, what causes STDs and how to know if you have one, etc. I have spoken with educated college students and discovered that many were unaware you could contract herpes or HPV even when your partner displayed no symptoms.
rather than criminalize abortion, let's put more effort into lowering the number of times people feel the need to consider it as an option.
Kasey
While I find this article incredibly amusing, I have to point out that this article is offensive to some of the Carnegie Mellon community.
There have been cases, such as the Peterson or Davis murder cases, where the fathers of unborn children killed the pregnant mother and were also charged with murder for the unborn babies. Now I have to ask all those pro-choice people and law makers, how can this be justified? Is it because they really care for those unborn children or is it only because a woman has been killed? After all, according to the law, most of those fetuses weren't human yet.
I find it extremely offensive that you think that handing out cupcakes is offensive to those in the college community while supporting the idea that cutting unborn babies into little pieces and throwing them away in the garbage or burning them is an OK thing to do. YOU were that fetus once, who made it into the world with the other 2/3 of our generation that wasn't aborted. How would you feel if you were one of the persecuted, aborted when you were in your mother's womb? Oh wait, you didn't have a say, that's right.
If the budget is so tight, why should we spend it on murder? I believe that it is punishable by law to be involved in a murder case voluntarily. I do not plan to spend my money on supporting the murder of 4000 babies a day.
Look, the truth is, whether you like it or not, abortion is murder. Even the law agrees in the cases stated above (although there is obviously a serious double-standard in our policies). Those in pro-life club could have walked around the campus with gruesome pictures, which can be easily be obtained from prolife.com, like those kids from UPitt. I think walking around with cupcakes, which you can respectfully decline if you don't want, and displaying popsicle sticks on campus ground are very peaceful ways to demonstrate against murder.
Abortion is a easy way out. Where did it start? The word "choice" is very misleading. You had a "choice" when you slept with a guy. If you are here at CMU, hopefully you are smart enough to know that you can get pregnant when you have sex, and that birth control is not 100% effective. You make the real choice when you choose to take the risk anyway. Once you become pregnant, you don't have a "choice" anymore because you are talking about a life of an another human being. If you don't like someone now cause they are an inconvenience to you, you cannot "abort" them. Can you?
Change is desperately needed. While I supported president-elect Barack Obama for many reasons other than abortion, I also supported those brave people who stood up for the unpopular, yet right belief that life should be protected. Young women of the community should think one more time before getting an abortion (or preferably even before accepting the 'hook-up' culture that makes it likely that they will have to face that decision one day), and realize that it is murder, and that it is unacceptable. Again, it's not a choice, but murder. Explain to me how it is not, AND why abortion is needed when one is being very selfish about oneself.
Finally, the Bill of Rights states that we have freedom of speech as long as it does not harm or prevent others from doing so. If what they are doing is so offensive to you, realize that you are offending many others as well and therefore should stop arguing before telling me that my tax money should be spent to support murder and to provide an easy way out for those senseless young women who chose to sleep around and put themselves at risk for unwanted pregnancy.
Having said that, this is one of the worst pro-choice editorials I have ever read.
preemptive fact-check strike
Before someone gets on here to discredit the whole editorial based on one fallacy, I would like to point out that it was not the Respect for Life group that did that heinous "American Unborn Holocaust Memorial." That being said, the point still stands that many anti-choice students have chosen completely inappropriate ways to focus Carnegie Mellon's attention on the issue of abortion.
well done!
This is one of the best editorials I've read (and not just in The Tartan).
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