Saturday, June 30, 2012
Safe, Legal, and Rare?
Former USA President Bill Clinton used this phrase to express his abortion position. He stated that he wished abortion to be safe for the women, legal, and to take place only very rarely.
Abortion is still legal in the United States, and 1,200,000 abortions took place in 2008. Legal yes, rare...no. How about safe for women?
Dr. Warren Hern, a leading American abortion doctor, told the 18th Annual Meeting of the National Abortion Federation: "I have to say this: There's a lot of crummy medicine being practiced out there in providing abortion services, and I think that some of the stuff I see coming across my desk is very upsetting...We have to do this right or we shouldn't do it."
The state of New York (USA) legalized abortion in 1970. Dr. Bernard Nathanson, a medical doctor instrumental in legalizing abortion in the state, was challenged with preparing a recently-opened abortion clinic for inspection. The administrator of the clinic told him that the doctors there were "atrocious...sadists, drunks, incompetents, sex maniacs, thieves, butchers, and lunatics...half of them don't even wash their hands anymore before doing an abortion...they refuse to use masks or caps, and their mustaches are dragging into the suction machines." Nathanson then toured the clinic and, according to the book Lime 5, found it "chaotic, crowded, inadequately lighted, ill-equipped, poorly run, poorly staffed, dirty, and operating with no back-up emergency hospital". Nathanson did manage to improve standards at the clinic in time for the inspection. After one incident-free abortion performed for the state inspector, the clinic received approval. Unfortunately, the next woman who underwent an abortion at the clinic suffered a perforated uterus and was rushed to a local emergency room. Nathanson himself grew increasingly disillusioned with abortion and became a pro-life advocate.
The problems at the clinic Nathanson so briefly improved continued. In 1988 a 19-year-old woman died after an abortion at the clinic. That same year health department inspections concluded the clinic regularly put its patients at "continuing and serious risk" by using "procedures and equipment that were grossly irresponsible and in contravention of accepted medical practice". The 1988 inspection listed over a dozen other deficiencies at the clinic, including expired emergency medicines, a lack of hand-washing sinks in the examination room, and no staff qualified to give anaesthesia.
Such is the state of abortion in the most medically-advanced nation in the world. It is hard to imagine that health care systems in developing nations like Swaziland would provide vastly better abortion care.
Instead, let us support mothers and children in life-giving ways during pregnancy, childbirth, and beyond. Let us work for healthy moms and children. No to abortion, yes to life.
Rudy Poglitsh
rpoglitsh@live.com
more letters at http://letterstotheTOS.blogspot.com
Friday, June 22, 2012
Early Feminist Voices
In accord with their human dignity, many individuals and groups see the need for Swazi women to participate in civic life alongside men. American women were not allowed to vote (a right sometimes called "suffrage") until 1920. A number of American women led the charge to give women the vote. What did these early champions of womens' rights have to say about abortion?
Susan B. Anthony, 1820-1906, and president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association and driving force of the women's suffrage movement-"Guilty? Yes. No matter what the motive, love of ease, or a desire to save from suffering the unborn innocent, the woman is awfully guilty who commits the deed. It will burden her conscience in life, it will burden her soul in death; But oh, thrice guilty is he who drove her to the desperation which impelled her to her crime!"-in Anthony's newspaper The Revolution
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who worked with Susan B. Anthony for 50 years to get women the vote: regarding prostitution and the "murder of children either before or after birth": "For a quarter of a century sober, thinking women have warned this nation of these thick coming dangers, and pointed to the only remedy, the education and enfranchisement of woman...We believe the cause of all these abuses lies in the degradation of women." in The Revolution, 5 February 1868
Victoria Woodhull, first female presidential candidate, 1870: "The rights of children as individuals begin while they yet remain the foetus."
Last off from Susan B. Anthony: "All the articles on this subject that I have read have been from men. They denounce women as alone guilty, and never include man in any plans for the remedy." -July 8, 1869
May all of us-both men and women-stand with these forward-thinking women in their defense of both women and children. No to abortion; yes to love and life.
read more at www.feministsforlife.org/history/foremoth.htm
Rudy Poglitsh
rpoglitsh@live.com
more letters at http://letterstotheTOS.blogspot.com
Susan B. Anthony, 1820-1906, and president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association and driving force of the women's suffrage movement-"Guilty? Yes. No matter what the motive, love of ease, or a desire to save from suffering the unborn innocent, the woman is awfully guilty who commits the deed. It will burden her conscience in life, it will burden her soul in death; But oh, thrice guilty is he who drove her to the desperation which impelled her to her crime!"-in Anthony's newspaper The Revolution
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who worked with Susan B. Anthony for 50 years to get women the vote: regarding prostitution and the "murder of children either before or after birth": "For a quarter of a century sober, thinking women have warned this nation of these thick coming dangers, and pointed to the only remedy, the education and enfranchisement of woman...We believe the cause of all these abuses lies in the degradation of women." in The Revolution, 5 February 1868
Victoria Woodhull, first female presidential candidate, 1870: "The rights of children as individuals begin while they yet remain the foetus."
Last off from Susan B. Anthony: "All the articles on this subject that I have read have been from men. They denounce women as alone guilty, and never include man in any plans for the remedy." -July 8, 1869
May all of us-both men and women-stand with these forward-thinking women in their defense of both women and children. No to abortion; yes to love and life.
read more at www.feministsforlife.org/history/foremoth.htm
Rudy Poglitsh
rpoglitsh@live.com
more letters at http://letterstotheTOS.blogspot.com
Saturday, June 9, 2012
Womens' Health After Abortion
I recently sampled statistics on womens' health after abortion. Here are some chilling facts:
*Post-abortive women are five times more likely to say they abuse drugs or alcohol than women who deliver their children.
*A study from New Zealand reports "Approximately 42% of women with a history of abortion had experienced major depression in the last four years-nearly double the rate of women who had not been pregnant, and 35% higher than women who had live births".
*A study conducted in Finland found suicide rates among post-abortive women were six times higher than for women who gave birth to their children.
This is but a tiny sample of the documented negative effects of abortion on women. Visit www.afterabortion.org for more information.
Swaziland is beginning to see the importance of protecting and promoting women's well-being. Abortion threatens the physical, emotional, and spiritual health of women. Abortion has no place in the effort to uplift women. Instead, let us support women through difficult pregnancies and circumstances, that they and their children may prosper in life.
Rudy Poglitsh
rpoglitsh@live.com
more letters at http://letterstotheTOS.blogspot.com
*Post-abortive women are five times more likely to say they abuse drugs or alcohol than women who deliver their children.
*A study from New Zealand reports "Approximately 42% of women with a history of abortion had experienced major depression in the last four years-nearly double the rate of women who had not been pregnant, and 35% higher than women who had live births".
*A study conducted in Finland found suicide rates among post-abortive women were six times higher than for women who gave birth to their children.
This is but a tiny sample of the documented negative effects of abortion on women. Visit www.afterabortion.org for more information.
Swaziland is beginning to see the importance of protecting and promoting women's well-being. Abortion threatens the physical, emotional, and spiritual health of women. Abortion has no place in the effort to uplift women. Instead, let us support women through difficult pregnancies and circumstances, that they and their children may prosper in life.
Rudy Poglitsh
rpoglitsh@live.com
more letters at http://letterstotheTOS.blogspot.com
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