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From: mn@dscvax2.UUCP (Matt Noah)
Newsgroups: net.abortion
Subject: informed choices?
Message-ID: <13@dscvax2.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 19-Jul-85 20:59:19 EDT
Article-I.D.: dscvax2.13
Posted: Fri Jul 19 20:59:19 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 25-Jul-85 22:34:40 EDT
Organization: Digital Sound Corp., Santa Barbara
Lines: 34

I would like to encourage anyone who has not stood in the trenches of a
sidewalk counseling effort to do so.  If the abortion clinic in your
area is anything like Santa Barbara's you
will soon realize that people are not making informed choices and that many
of their reasons/arguments for abortion are irrational or bigoted or any number
of universally unappealing ...
I was having a friendly, rational discussion with a woman outside a clinic
last week.  Her friend was in having an abortion.  I was supplying her with
some information that she was seemingly taking in.  Although her opinion was
hostile to mine the only argument she presented for keeping abortions legal
was "If you had a 13-year-old daughter who was raped by a Black ...".
Just today, a couple listened intently to a number of arguments including
the argument that an 8-week-old fetus has both a heartbeat and an immature
but functioning central nervous system - the 'message center' of feeling.
When they heard that they were visibly upset.  Surprising?  No.  Abortionists
don't tell pregnant women the whole truth typically.  They talk about the
procedure and how it will affect them if everything goes alright.  The effects
they talk about are possible bleeding, nausea, etc.  Nothing about the form
of abortion.  When the young man I was talking to heard that his *female
escortee* was going to have a suction abortion and that a suction abortion
basically uses air pressure to suck and tear limbs from the fetus he was
overcome.  
He then walked away at the prodding of his companion only to say that "some
things just have to be done, I guess".  Whether he believed us was
questionable.  I believe he fell compelled to carry out what he was intending
to do that morning regardless.
In my experience as a sidewalk counselor I have not seen a great number of
informed or happy people enter or leave a clinic.

Matt Noah

:wq