Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uunet!aplcen!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!brutus.cs.uiuc.edu!psuvax1!psuvm!OWUCOMCN!LHARANGO From: LHARANGO@OWUCOMCN (Lauren Arango) Newsgroups: bit.listserv.christia Subject: RE: MAKS on abortion - LHA Message-ID: Date: 13 Feb 90 14:11:00 GMT Sender: Practical Christian Life Reply-To: Practical Christian Life Lines: 51 Approved: NETNEWS@PSUVM.BITNET Gateway Original_To: CHRISTIA I thought MAKS' latest posting on abortion was very good. I have always felt that life began at conception; placing the beginning of life at any other point in the development of the child seems arbitrary and iffy to me. And I also agree that when we start saying that a human being may be eliminated because it will not be a meaningful member of society (say, if you find out that the baby inside you will be born with Downs' Syndrome or spina bifida), it's only a short step to decide to eliminate Grandma because it's inconvenient to take care of her at home and we don't have the money for a nursing home. When I was pregnant with Amanda (my daughter who is now 6 years old), my obstetrician wanted me to have amniocentesis because I was then 36 years old. He told me that if the results showed anything wrong with the baby, I could then have an abortion. I informed him on the spot that I would *never* have an abortion no matter what, and if that was the only reason for doing the test, we could forget it....although I would appreciate having it so that I would know ahead of time if there were going to be something wrong with my child....and so could prepare myself for what lay ahead. I did go ahead with it, and she was fine....no problem. But as I lay there and saw her on the ultrasound TV screen, she was a person! She had arms and legs and was moving around. There was *no* doubt in my mind about it. And all I could think of was my obstetrician saying that I could have an abortion when the test results came back! And keep in mind that it takes about 4 weeks for the results to come back (because they have to grow cells from the amniotic fluid, I think), so my child would have been a whole month older than she was at that time, and I still could have legally had an abortion! I had always considered myself pro-choice before that....very strongly so....but I think that that was the beginning of my change to pro-life. God let me have a glimpse of what was *really* inside me on that ultrasound screen, and having seen that, there was no way I could support abortion after having seen that. As far as a woman controlling her own body.... Certainly as a woman, it is in my own interest to control my own body. And I *do* control my own body when I make a decision to have sex, or to use birth control. Now I realize that this is not the case with incest or rape, but I maintain that *my* rights extend *only* as far as they don't infringe on others' rights. I have the right to have a party at my home and play loud music, but my right to do that extends only as far as my neighbor's right to be able to go to bed at night and have it quiet enough to fall asleep. I have the right to decide whether or not to have a child....but if that child is already alive, then I no longer have the right to decide *not* to have it. Make sense? I hope so.... I get awfully tired of abortion being presented by pro-choice people as a women vs. men thing. I think that's just a red herring to cloud the *real* issue. Anyway, enough said. I have rambled on, haven't I? :-) Lauren