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While we hate to “rehash a long-dead debate,” as John Brown puts it, we feel that the pro-choice side of the abortion argument has not been adequately represented in the Minnesota Daily. This letter does not seek to change anyone’s mind on this topic, only to clarify points that other students, faculty, and staff have mentioned. Just as the Genocide Awareness Project was allowed their free speech, so should pro-choice students be given a fair voice.
Abortion is not genocide because the procedure is not a systematic extermination, or even an attempt to systematically exterminate, an entire group of people. The key word is entire, not systematic. Abortion clinics are no more systematic attempts to terminate all pregnancies, as Kathryn Elliot explains, than gyms are systematic attempts to force everyone to exercise. The Holocaust was genocide because it was an attempt to exterminate all Jews, all mentally and physically disabled people, and all members of many other groups. Pro-choice organizations and abortion providers are not trying to abort all fetuses, or all fetuses with genetic abnormalities, or all fetuses of particular racial groups, and neither are the women whom these clinics serve. Abortion is a medical procedure that is voluntarily chosen by those women who no longer want to continue their pregnancies -- or are no longer able to, due to a serious health risk.
Furthermore, organizations like the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform and their graphic displays do nothing to reduce the number of unplanned pregnancies that lead to abortions. They encourage and oftentimes manipulate, in the case of “crisis pregnancy centers,” women to continue their pregnancies and then give their children up for adoption. Anti-choice organizations discourage the use of condoms, birth control, Plan B, and other forms of contraception, which would reduce the number of unplanned pregnancies, and, thus, the number of abortions. These organizations also do not advocate for comprehensive sexual education, which teaches people how to properly use contraception, which would reduce the numbers of STI’s in addition to the number of unplanned pregnancies.
Pro-choice organizations, like the University Pro-Choice Coalition, advocate for women to be allowed a choice, whatever their decision may be. We support prevention: comprehensive sexual education and access to contraceptives, not emotional and factual manipulation and scare tactics.
And for those who think that the debate on this topic is finished, please consider the fact that not too long ago, the government granted this reproductive right and could just as easily take it away. Freedom is not free without a choice.
Brook Jacobson and Pamela Ronnei
Co-Presidents
University Pro-Choice
Serving the University of Minnesota Community since 1900
2 Comments
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Facts Not Adequately Represented
Brook and Pamela,
You would have us believe that crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs) “manipulate” women when they say, “You can allow your child to live and we can help, and there’s no cost for our services.” How is that manipulative? On the other hand, abortion clinics actually empower women when they say, “You can’t possibly give birth to this child, but give us $500 and we can make your problem go away.” No manipulation there.
You are right when you say abortion does not exterminate all preborn children. Abortion exterminates only the unwanted preborn children. “Unwanted preborn children” defines a group of human beings. Every year, at least 1.2 million human beings fitting that description are terminated. In other words, a definable group of human beings (unwanted, preborn human beings) are being systematically destroyed. That is not genocide? Would you prefer the term “mass murder?”
For your own sakes, please go and get that comprehensive sexual education as quickly as you can. I hope they tell you that there are some STDs for which condoms provide little or no protection. HPV, a major cause of cervical cancer, is one example. I hope they tell you that condoms (particularly those provided by the government and their low-bid suppliers?) are subject to breakage and slippage that can render them ineffective. I hope they tell you that the pill, Plan B, and most other forms of contraception provide zero protection against STDs. Perhaps the training you could have gotten at the local CPC is actually more comprehensive—and less deadly—than the “comprehensive” training you got from the abortion industry (Planned Parenthood?).
Scare tactics? I don’t know about you, but I’d rather be scared than infected.
Responses to your major points
CPCs manipulate people from the minute they're visible. They sometimes advertise as "clinics," have names similar to actual clinics, are located near actual clinics, and they try to make their offices look like medical facilities. Once a person is inside the CPC they are told misleading and false information, including, but not limited to: that abortion is a medically dangerous procedure, that all women who get abortions are permanently emotionally scarred, that abortion causes breast cancer, etc.
Even if you define the "group" that is exterminated as "unwanted fetuses," they are still not systematically exterminated: not every woman who does not want to continue a pregnancy gets, or is able to get, an abortion.
I'd like to know what organization sponsored your "comprehensive" sexual education. Here is what actual comprehensive sexual education will tell you:
I'd rather be informed and protected than scared and infected.
[Edit: fixed a broken link]