Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, July 17, 1993 TAG: 9307200569
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A11 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ANDREA SEXTON
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Like Fitzgerald, I agree that child abuse, infant mortality, rape and female bondage are hideous problems that society and individuals have a responsibility to combat. I disagree, however, that the availability of abortion on demand, guaranteed by the Freedom of Choice Act, is the solution to any of them. Rather, abortion is the ultimate child abuse, an intentional means of infant mortality, and, if anything, only serves to perpetuate male dominance over women.
Which of the problems outlined by Fitzgerald has been solved by abortion? Since Roe vs. Wade, child abuse and neglect have skyrocketed, feminization of poverty continues unabated, and raped and physically abused women still exist in great numbers.
Her frustration over violence, oppression and neglect is understandable. However, dismembering living, pre-born children exacerbates rather than solves these problems. All begin with a lack of respect for a particular class, a moral blindness to common humanity.
Not only will the legislation not solve the problems cited by Fitzgerald, it will do nothing to address issues under Roe vs. Wade such as when a state may legislate to protect a fetus. The legislation will ensure even more late-term abortions. While appearing to allow states to limit these late abortions, the bill's legislative history reveals that abortionists alone will define when "viability" occurs. By preventing states from establishing a viability framework by law (of say, 22-24 weeks), an abortionist may subjectively pick any time, even after 32 weeks, as viability.
In a context other than abortion, the problem is clear. Consider this analogy:
A federal law prohibiting state restrictions on firearms contains a clause permitting states to regulate "assault weapons," but requires states to allow individual gun dealers to define "assault weapons." In practice, this law would prohibit state interference with the sale of any firearm that a dealer wanted to sell. Likewise, the Freedom of Choice Act confers unreviewable authority to define viability on abortionists who legally could perform any abortion they want to "sell."
Contrary to statements made by Planned Parenthood in this newspaper, the legislation would invalidate almost all current parental-consent and notification laws. These state laws place the legal burden of obtaining consent or notifying the parent on the doctor. This bill, however, only allows laws in which "a minor involves a parent, guardian or other responsible adult . . . " In other words, the bill only allows states to place the legal, and practically unenforceable, burden on the child.
Abortion is the violent taking of a child's life rather than an exercise of female liberty. Those who view pregnancy as a tool of male oppression, and abortion as a way of somehow equalizing the sexes, display a contemptuous attitude toward the female body and men in general.
The argument that women are second-class citizens without abortion is sexist. It presumes that, by nature, women are inferior to men, requiring surgery to be equal. Its proponents implicitly concede that social equality for women is unachievable. Rather than working to restructure society to accommodate women and their unique biological capacity to transmit life, these so-called feminists accept restructuring women through abortion to accommodate what they see as a male-dominated society.
Pro-life women understand that permissive abortion only makes it easier for roguish men to exploit women. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to explain why the most pro-abortion segment in America is comprised of young men 19-to-35 years of age. About five years ago the Ms. Foundation decided not to accept any more money from the Playboy Foundation to support abortion. One can only suppose they finally figured out why Playboy supports abortion, and it's not out of concern for the dignity of women.
The irony is that conferring the "license" to abort on women as a way of alleviating the "unfair" burden of pregnancy causes pregnancy and children to be viewed as solely a woman's responsibility. When the choice to abort is hers alone, a woman finds it difficult to make a claim on her partner to share responsibility for their child: "She could have had an abortion, it's her problem." Men who once may have felt obligated to both mother and child now feel chivalrous if they offer to pay for the abortion.
Like Fitzgerald, pro-life women agree that abortion is a matter of power and control and that the Freedom of Choice Act is a battle over one person's right to own another. Unlike her, these women see that abortion itself is a violent and unacceptable solution to personal and societal problems. Abortion kills children and demeans women who will achieve neither social empowerment nor self-respect over the dead bodies of their sons and daughters.
\ AUTHOR Andrea Sexton of Salem is chairperson for the Virginia Society for Human Life.
by CNB