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From: tan@ihlpg.UUCP (Bill Tanenbaum - AT&T Bell Labs - Naperville IL)
Newsgroups: net.abortion
Subject: Re: informed choices?
Message-ID: <949@ihlpg.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 25-Jul-85 11:30:15 EDT
Article-I.D.: ihlpg.949
Posted: Thu Jul 25 11:30:15 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 28-Jul-85 14:43:28 EDT
References: <13@dscvax2.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Lines: 39

> 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
-------------------------------------------------
You, Mr. Noah, seem to be doing everything that you can to make the people
even more miserable.  As Sophie Quigly so eloquently stated, abortion is
often not an easy decision.  Your hypocrisy and air of moral superiority
are disgusting.  You complain about the unhappiness of women entering 
abortion clinics, yet you do everything you can to make them even more
miserable unless they recognize the TRUTH as seen by Matt Noah.
-- 
Bill Tanenbaum - AT&T Bell Labs - Naperville IL  ihnp4!ihlpg!tan