Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site we53.UUCP
Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!harpo!whuxlm!whuxl!houxm!ihnp4!mgnetp!we53!bmt
From: bmt@we53.UUCP ( B. M. Thomas )
Newsgroups: net.abortion
Subject: Re: Can we make progress?
Message-ID: <340@we53.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 10-Sep-85 23:14:32 EDT
Article-I.D.: we53.340
Posted: Tue Sep 10 23:14:32 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 12-Sep-85 22:45:51 EDT
References: <30381@lanl.ARPA> <265@bcsaic.UUCP> <11440@rochester.UUCP> <426@mhuxr.UUCP> <338@we53.UUCP> <427@mhuxr.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Technologies - St. Louis Missouri
Lines: 109


>No article I have seen advocates teen people ruled by their bodies. I feel
>it much healthier when teenagers determine their sex life because of informed
>choices, and not on orders from third parties. I feel it is much healthier
>when teenagers understand the signals their bodies send them and choose
>to take or not take action accordingly. I feel it is *not* healthy when they
>don't understand what is happening or worse, have false ideas about their
>sexuality and thus make bad choices.

You just did advocate it.  Yes, you're right about making bad choices.  What
you and they don't seem to understand is that outside of marriage it's a
bad choice, whether it agrees with your religion or not.  If you swallow
poison, you're going to get sick whether or not you believe it's poisonous.

>If you think sex is "good, wholesome, healthy, beautiful and FUN!" why do
>you denigrate organizations like Planned Parenthood that seek to keep
>it that way? People have pointed out again and again that the teenagers
>who go to Planned Parenthood do so because sex education is not forthcoming
>from their parents. Yet you flame the concept of sexual education, from
>whatever source. What do you want? It is one thing to remain virginal
>until marriage, quite another to get to your wedding night without the faintest
>idea what is going to happen or why! I have known several people who
>have found themselves in that situation and they invariably suffered for it.

I know several who waited, too, like I said before, and they didn't suffer
for it.

How did they suffer?  Because they had to learn together how to satisfy
each other?  And Planned Parenthood is perpetrating the lie that you can
have your cake and eat it too.  The thing that kids need most to know is
not how to do it, but how to keep from doing it.  You're still missing the
point.  It is NOT good for young people to experiment with sex.  I'm not
trying to make anyone unhappy, just point out the *F*A*C*T* that casual sex
is not good for anyone, whether they agree or not.

>Who said anything about pornography? What deos that have to with sex education
>and abortion (besides some ramblings about society's decay)?

Rambling it was, sorry.  I get that way after a long day.  It was just another
part of the "it feels good, so it must be right" lie.

>But if sex is so much "FUN!", why wait until marriage, especially if you decide
>not to get married for a while? Is the argument "sex is for married people 
>only, junior" "But why daddy?" Why indeed? Religious reasons? 

No.  Practical reasons.  It may feel good now, son, but afterwards it will do
you harm.  Just like lots of other things that I've taught you that seem good
at the time but later get you into trouble.  Like eating too much ice cream.

>                                                         Then those
>who don't share your faith will be forgiven if they reach different
>conclusions, yes?

Not my department.  I can forgive them, but the question is, is it right?
My purpose is not to judge, but to warn of danger, and to plead the cause
of righteousness.

>Fist of all, abortion was a legal, accepted and not immoral option 
>throughout the 18th and early part of the 19th centuries. In the mid 1800s,
>the newly formed AMA decided that the midwives who performed abortions
>and delivered babies were incompetent and started a campaign to stamp
>them out. It succeeded in declaring abortion illegal, not on moral
>grounds but on grounds of health dangers to the mother. It is only in
>the Victorian era that moral taboos got imposed on abortion.
>Even then, from roughly 1870 to 1970, abortions got performed,
>but in back alleys, with coat hangers. Women died or became permanently
>sterile. Are these the good old days you wre referring to?

"Not immoral"?  Says who?  You?  Pharaoh commanded the Jewish midwives to
kill male Jewish babies too.  That was legal, since Pharaoh WAS the law.
Was that "not immoral"?

The way I heard it was that research that was coming to light was 
convincing the medical scientists that there really was a life in there, 
and that killing it was indeed criminal.

>Spare me the cloak of your morality, sir. I can understand opposition
>to abortion. I am willing to try an reach a compromise with those
>who would make their opposition public policy. I am not willing to
>listen to jeremiads from those who long for a golden age of
>hypocritical morality.
>
>Marcel Simon

I'm not certain what you mean by a cloak of morality.  I am a somewhat seasoned
sinner who has seen what my doings have caused, and come for forgiveness to
someone who promised to forget my past and give me a new start.  I am most
certainly not masquerading as someone that I'm not, and there is nothing
hypocritical about understanding the consequences of the misuse of a human
life.  If you want to call me a hypocrite, you had better first come and live
with me and show me what's wrong.  More than likely, if you find something
wrong and point it out, I'll change.  I have no percentage in anyone living in
guilt or depression.  It is the wrongdoing itself, not someone else's calling
it wrong, that causes guilt, sickness, and death.  Extramarital sex is wrong-
doing, and the fact that your religion doesn't recognize that is a judgement
on your religion and doesn't change the truth.

I would like to believe that you didn't intentionally misunderstand what I
said.  Because of your very different world view and my poor style at the
keyboard, I can understand that you might not have been able to get my
meaning.  I am only asking that people open their eyes and see what's happening
all around them, and stop trading their lives for pleasures that are false and
fleeting.  This is the truth, and I'd like to persuade you of it, for your
benefit and that of the whole world.

(At least you called me "sir".)

brian