Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, July 8, 1993 TAG: 9307120245
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LEE D. FITZGERALD
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
The bill will restrict states from forbidding access to abortion until the fetus becomes "viable" - that is, before the fetus can live outside the mother's body. This is now generally recognized to be the first six months. The saving of sixth-month babies is now so common that we are somewhat surprised when one of these little fellows doesn't make it.
There are even a few born at 5 1/2 months walking this earth. That is another important point of this bill. It recognizes the advance of science and the saving of premature babies at increasingly earlier stages of development.
Those who continue to talk about women and doctors conspiring to allow day-before-birth abortions show real contempt for both women and physicians. It just isn't happening.
What the Freedom of Choice Act does is prevent the fanatical minority from passing legislation that, in effect, makes women the property of men. For all these men shouting, demonstrating and blocking entrances to women's clinics, that is what this argument is about. It is about power, dominance and control.
These men do not give a rat's nose about babies. Approximately 10 children die every day in the United States from abuse and neglect, and an estimated 40,000 children die daily worldwide for the same reasons. These demonstrators do not say one word about this.
When a woman tried to sue her former husband for possession of a clutch of fertilized eggs the two had contributed to when love was still in bloom, the courts turned her down. A man cannot be forced to become a father against his will, said the courts. The right-to-life movement said absolutely nothing.
Figures recently released show the United States has slipped back another notch in our shameful record of infant mortality. We now rank 20th among First World nations. We have the highest infant-mortality rate of any of the nations we consider our peers. No shouting men and demonstrators for this!
Most of our major cities have a growing problem with what are termed "boarder babies." These are babies left in hospitals by mothers who just do not want them, or can't figure out what to do with their babies. Some of these children have started walking by the time foster homes are found for them. Some localities have begun thinking of re-establishing the orphanage. No men are storming these walls for these babies.
When men like Congressmen Henry Hyde sit stolidly in the Republican National Convention and demand a ban on abortion for any reason, they are saying that not only should women not have an abortion on demand, men have a right to breed on demand, by brute, physical force if they so choose. If the rapist is caught and convicted, he will be punished - but so will the victim.
There is an easy or perhaps simplistic answer to stopping abortions. Stop unwanted pregnancies. Men can fully participate in this.
Dr. William R. Archer III is the darling of Phyllis Schafly's Eagle Forum and the man George Bush put in charge of family planning and contraceptive research. It is Archer's documented beliefs that the Supreme Court was wrong to legalize contraception, that the birth-control pill in use for many years has hurt women and that men should be responsible for contraception. He is also single and, by his own admission, celibate.
When the first contraceptive pill went on the market, many women found their husbands rummaging through their belongings looking for "those damn pills." This type of man was threatened by the pill. The ability to impregnate, even by force, is his ultimate weapon against his wife.
Recent studies in countries in Central and South America brought a similar reaction from husbands. With total candor, these men expressed puzzlement as to the need for contraceptives. If a man did not keep his woman pregnant, they asked, how was he to control her? How else would he keep other men away from her? Not one expressed any opinion about the sanctity of life. It's all about domination, power and control.
Witness the use of systematic rape and impregnation of Moslem women by the Serbs. Pope John II's comment? These women should not abort.
The recent call for uniform, worldwide human rights has hit one major snag. It isn't right, contend some countries, to prevent them from following time-honored customs. What customs? Female genital mutilation and the selling of their women and children to the brothels that so many American men like to patronize, especially in Eastern countries. Is anyone left who is unaware of the popularity of vacation sex tours? Is there anyone who doesn't know the future of the American-Asian children born from this activity? Any men throwing themselves against the whorehouse doors trying to stop this immorality? None that anybody seems to have noticed.
In our own country, a national magazine, whose main theme purports to teach and promote good and healing ways to use our Earth, carries long columns of women from poor countries for sale under the guise of brides for sale, which is supposed to make it more palatable. The magazine's name is Mother Earth. Was any mother more ill-served?
Laws on parental notification for pregnant teen-agers are admittedly about control of the immature, which is part of a parent's job description. That is why there is nothing in the Freedom of Choice Act prohibiting states from passing parental-notification laws. However, suggest that this include notification of the boy's parents and eyes glaze over. Indeed, why should they not only be notified but be required by law to pay 50 percent of the costs, for whatever procedure is selected? This could include paying 50 percent of child support until the young stud has reached his majority and can take over the paying for his actions on his own until his little wild oat has reached its majority. Try that one and see how far it flies!
How about laws requiring men to pay for damages done to a woman's life and body when impregnated? It would be easier to pass hygiene laws on the tooth fairy.
There are men who say, "She made her choice when she chose to become pregnant." They are still pretending that women somehow "get themselves pregnant," a true study in judgmental myopia. These men are trying to keep women divided into good girl, bad girl (which is usually synonymous with poor) categories. It is an attempt to try to put women back into some sort of psychological, legalistic chastity belt, and is the arrogant pointing of fingers at another without noticing the incredible amount of dirt on their own hands.
In this country, the Freedom of Choice Act is a last-ditch stand over one person's right to own another.
Lee D. Fitzgerald of Fincastle is former owner, along with her husband, of the Fincastle Herald.
by CNB