Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site mit-eddie.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!ihnp4!mit-eddie!barry
From: barry@mit-eddie.UUCP (Mikki Barry)
Newsgroups: net.abortion
Subject: Re: Back to you, Ken
Message-ID: <3856@mit-eddie.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 21-Mar-85 10:42:43 EST
Article-I.D.: mit-eddi.3856
Posted: Thu Mar 21 10:42:43 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 23-Mar-85 00:58:57 EST
References: <3824@mit-eddie.UUCP> <1154@pyuxa.UUCP>
Organization: MIT, Cambridge, MA
Lines: 52

WARNING T.C. WHEELER - YOU ARE AGREEING WITH KEN!

Now on to the article...

What I perhaps did not clarify in my previous posting was that the way the
law is written, abortions are legal regardless of the reason the woman
wants one.  Changing it to make aboritons legal only when certain people
think they should be would be difficult at best.  Also hypocritical.
It's ok to end a human life (as pro-lifers think of it) when we decide
its ok, but not ok just because you want to *not* have a child.

Before you flame away, I agree that abortions done for birth control reasons
are not a good thing in this society where contraception is readily available.
BUT, there is a real problem here....many health insurance companies (Blue
Cross of NH for one) that will NOT cover contraception, but WILL cover
abortion.  How come?  If I was too poor to afford $10 per month for pills,
and thought I was doing the rhythm method right, and got pregnant, my abortion
(if I chose to have one), would be covered.  This is just offered as an
example, not an "excuse".

I am not sure how medicaid works, but in NH abortion is not covered at all,
(except if it can be shown that the woman will DIE if she carries to term,
not allowed in the case of rape or incest), so the argument of keeping down
the poverty level doesn't wash in NH, since the woman has to find money 
somewhere if she wants an abortion.  The ironic thing in NH was that there have
been only 3 abortions funded in the past 5 years by medicaid, and when a recent
bill came before the legislature to stop funding abortions for the woman who
would die if she carried to term, many "pro-lifers" (and I use the term
loosely since they don't care about the life of the woman in this case (not
an indictment on all pro lifers, ok?)) flocked to the state house to support
the bill, EVEN THOUGH IT MEANT NH LOST ALL FEDERAL FUDNING FOR MEDICAID.
So money is not the issue.  I don't know if medicaid will cover contraception,
but can you see the bind a poor woman is in if it doesn't?  No contraception,
no abortion, so she becomes a baby factory.  And how do those babies grow up?
Why, in poverty of course.  How can the woman of a poverty stricken mother
be expected to know about contraception if her mother doesn't, and it isn't
presented to her in the schools, and if it is economically impossible for her
to get it.  This is why there are still many unsafe abortions going on, and
still many women dying from them.

This is why I hoped we could work together to make aboritons unnecessary.
It is far easier to take a pill, or get an IUD or diaphragm (or cerviceal
cap if people would stop picketing the only center in NH that has them)
than to go through an abortion.  We just have to make it available and
understood.  There will be abortions whether or not the laws change.
Wouldn't it be better to let those that happen be safe, while cutting
down on their numbers?

Mikki Barry

p.s.  I am intentionally ignoring discussion on euthanasia of the elderly.
      It is an irrelevant argument.