If no one is willing to delay the September 18th opening date of Planned Parenthood in Aurora, we can be confident that Pro-Life citizens will continue to be present to defend life there.  The entire process should contribute to the public relations black eye that has been overtaking Planned Parenthood in recent years.  Hopefully, citizens less devoted to the Pro-Life cause will take notice of the deceptive tactics used by Planned Parenthood to recruit new customers through preying on young people and separating them from their parents.

Illinois Right to Life News for Friday, August 24, 2007 

Discerning what is responsible behavior

Thanks to an article in the August 20th Chicago Sun-Times (Birth-control costs soaring at colleges), we have a new perspective on the impact of the increased cost of birth control for college students.  Before the appearance of this article, we had already learned from a Wall Street Journal article that some people considered it problematic that students might switch to cheaper generic birth control products or that their privacy might be threatened because they would need to get birth control through their parents health insurance.

Now we learn that some women will get pregnant when they just stop using birth control because of the high price, but keep having sex anyway.  The choice of an African-American as the pictured and quoted example of a resulting pregnancy even led to a subtle charge of racism from Sun-Times columnist Mary Mitchell the next day.  That edition also carried an editorial giving this pregnant woman advice.  Citing her right “to decide whether to carry a child to term,” the editorial stated, “With those rights come responsibilities.” 

None of these three articles mentioned abortion by name.  Only the editorial even hinted at abortion as the solution to this “unwanted” pregnancy.  Apparently, these Sun-Times staff members felt that bringing up abortion was not a good idea.  Does this omission suggest they recognize the now well-documented negative impacts that abortion has for women?  Can we consider this evidence from liberal sources that abortion is really not a good option?

Other interesting tidbits get revealed as well.  The original article includes quotes that suggest relying on condoms is not very effective.  Dr. Nandini Khatkhate stated, “When it’s not planned sex, something like a condom may not be used.”  What kind of heresy is this?  Have we not been led to believe that comprehensive sex education with demonstrations of how to put condoms on bananas would solve the problem of teen pregnancy?

None of the articles ever mentioned abstinence as a solution to the high price of birth control, suggesting that each article’s author must be a proponent of “safe sex” and comprehensive sex education.  Opps.  We have been led to believe that even comprehensive sex education “puts a strong emphasis on abstinence.”  Well, maybe not!

The concept of responsibilities was covered in both the August 21st commentary and editorial.  Such phrases as “sexually irresponsible” and “having responsible sex” come to mind.  This concept of responsibility gets to the heart of the matter.  Is it irresponsible to have sex outside of marriage, or just to have sex without birth control outside of marriage?  I will contend it is the former.  Everyone knows that birth control fails, even under the best circumstances, and quotes from the original article demonstrate that reality offers much less than the best circumstances.   How can it be responsible to have sex outside of marriage when an “unwanted pregnancy” will eventually occur from contraceptive failure?

If abstinence outside of marriage is the only truly responsible choice, then how can we expect young people who first choose the irresponsible behavior of having premarital sex to somehow become responsible on a lower plane by using birth control consistently and correctly?  It is only human nature, as reflected in the desire for instant gratification, to ignore not just the first norm of behavior, but the remaining ones as well.  Sex outside of marriage will lead to casual sex, that is, sex without stopping to deal with the inconveniences of birth control, high prices or otherwise.  The only responsible choice is abstinence before marriage and fidelity within marriage.  Any other choice is irresponsible because it is guaranteed to produce negative consequences sooner or later.

Illinois Right to Life News for Friday, August 10, 2007 

Pro-aborts running out of arguments to justify abortion

Apparently, abortion advocates have generated another argument to justify keeping abortion legal.  They have decided it is really smart to ask pro-life politicians (and other defenders of life) what type of punishment they would demand for women once abortion was outlawed.  Their reasoning works from the premise that women must be punished if they seek illegal abortions.  They believe this approach will push the public to keep abortion legal because they will reject jail time for women who seek abortions.

As usual, there are serious flaws in this latest argument to justify abortion.  Why does it follow that making abortion illegal requires that women who seek them must be punished?  The evidence proving there is no such connection is historical.   None of the state laws against abortion that were overturned by Roe v Wade considered the woman a criminal, but rather a victim.   Penalties only applied to the abortionist.   Would child labor laws need to punish the underage children who took jobs along with the employers that hired them?  Of course not!

A few years ago claims were made that legal abortion had reduced the crime rate, supposedly because unwanted children were not allowed to grow up and become criminals.  That conclusion was first refuted in 2005 when the data used in the study was questioned as inaccurate.   Now a study has been published in the April 2007 issue of the academic journal Economic Inquiry that concludes abortion actually leads to higher crime and increased murder rates. 

This result has occurred because a higher percentage of children grew up in single-parent homes during the years following Roe v. Wade.  Legal abortion ultimately resulted in more out-of-wedlock births, a reduction in the number of children adopted, and fewer married parents.  Because such children are more likely to become criminals than those in two-parent homes, the researchers say abortion led to higher rates of crime.   They point out that 5 percent of white children were born out of wedlock from 1965 to 1969, compared to 16 percent in the 1980's. Black children born out of wedlock increased from 35 percent to 62 percent in the same period.  That information should certainly end any claim of societal benefits from legal abortion.

Since abortion advocates themselves have even recognized the folly of the “blob of tissue” argument with the wide use of ultrasound, that argument has disappeared, except as a response to confused teens who are being sold abortions.   Testimony from many women has proven that abortion does not improve their lives, so the claim that abortion is needed to empower women disappeared as well.  Even most abortion advocates admit abortion is not a desirable choice.  Then there is that often-cited argument that too many women are dying from illegal abortions, but statistics show there is no basis to justify that claim either.  

At least there remains the old reliable “cases of rape and incest” argument, even though that would only account for about 1% of the abortions currently committed annually.  But wait; rape victims are now coming forward to testify.  Virtually all of those who gave birth feel it was the correct choice.  Many of those who obtained abortions now testify that it was the wrong decision.