LISA PYTLIK
Abortion battles miss point
Ifelt like a second grader.
Last week, as I passed by the
union, I saw a display spon
sored by “Students for Life.” As I
gazed at the graphic images of aborted
fetuses, I began to feel like a small
child: confused, powerless and sort of
sick to my stomach.
Swirling visions of militant Pro
Life marches, demanding petitions
and anti-abortion laws filled my head
until it ached.
Then I noticed that someone had
scribbled on the glass display case
with bright red lipstick. I couldn’t
read the smeared words, but the red
streaks looked violently angry. I pic
tured enraged Pro-Choice members
marching and petitioning against Pro
Life efforts, unsheathing their many
legitimate points in war-like retali
ation.
“What is the answer?” I wondered.
“Who’s right? Who will win this war?”
Questions spun through my head,
making me increasingly dizzy with
confusion, until I felt as if I were
floating.
“Follow me,” a strange voice said.
Blinking my eyes and shaking my
head, I realized that the cement plaza
I previously stood upon had been
replaced by clouds. An old man with
deep brown eyes and a white beard
was dragging me by the hand down a
long while hallway. At the end of the
hallway was a single door that, to my
surprise, opened to reveal a huge
playground furnished with toys plated
with gold.
“I’d like you to meet someone,”
the old man said. “This is one of the
children you saw pictured in the dis
play in front of the union.”
He waved to a little boy with jet
black hair and almond-shaped eyes
who was busily playing with a red
rubber ball. Dropping his ball, the
boy ran to meet us.
“Hi!” He said with a grin. I imme
diately noticed that he had large scars
running like patchwork across his face.
“I was aborted,” he said in re
sponse to my stare. “It was done le
gally, but it was still a hard choice for
my parents. If I would have been
bom, my mother would have died and
left my father alone to try to care for
me and my three young sisters. The
choice was between depriving me of
life or my sisters of a mother. I think
my parents made the best decision
they could. As it turns out, I would
have been stillborn anyway.”
Just then, a little girl with bright
orange pigtails came running towards
us with her arms waving.
“Is she new here?” she asked,
pointing at me.
“No, the old man answered. “She’s
Love is a uniting
force; war is not. The
whole Pro-Life vs.
Pro-Choice muausl
stop.
just visiting.”
“Oh.” The little girl looked disap
pointed. “I’m waiting for my sister.
I’m really looking forward to meet
ing her.”
“Your sister?” I asked. The girl
nodded.
“Yes. My mother is planning to
abort her like she did me. Mom didn’t
know that I would have been a doctor
when I grew up and that I was going
to find the cure for cancer someday.
She just didn’t think about what her
choice might mean. In fact, I don’t
even think she knew what all her
options were.”
The sad, thoughtful look on the
little girl’s face broke through my
second grade emotional state, and I
felt myself growing up again into a
rationalizing, intellcclualizing college
student.
“I must do something,” I said,
turning to the old man. “I must take a
stand. But with whom? Pro-Life? Pro
Choice? What should I do?”
The old man didn’t answer me.
I felt a tugging at my sleeve. It was
the children.
“Tell my mom I love her,” said the
little boy with the almond-shaped eyes.
“Mine too,” said the little girl with
the orange pigtails.
And then I understood. The an
swer to the questions posed by ad
vanced technologies such as abortion
were not to be found in extreme activ
ist groups. 1 didn’t need to be Pro-Life
or Pro-Choice. I needed to be Pro
Love.
Love is a uniting force; war is not.
The whole Pro-Life vs. Pro-Choice
war must stop.
A “war” between two parties implies
that the two sides do not share com
mon interests. But Pro-Life and Pro
Choice activists should share two major
concerns: the life of a child and the
life of a mother.
Activists on both sides would be
much more effective if they stopped
fighting and started uniting to help
both mothers and children without
excluding or emphasizing one group
over the other.
Each side could start by acknowl
edging the strengths of the other. “Life”
and “Choice” are not antonyms or
separate entities. They are simply two
sides of the same coin.
Life is important and should be
respected, not taken for granted or
treated lightly. Most Pro-Choice ac
tivists are also “for life.”
Choices are also important and
must be respected. Without the abil
ity to choose, we are not fully alive.
Pro-Life activists exercise a
“choice” every time they choose to
“not” have an abortion. And they
would not like that choice to be taken
from them.
Once united, the groups could pool
their resources to find ways to edu
cate women who don’t know what
their choices are, or what their choices
could mean in terms of emotional and
physical health. Then they could work
together to help the women deal with
whatever difficult choice they make.
Instead of faithfully writing to
senators, an activist on either side
could write caring notes of encour
agement to an individual mother who
needs support. Instead of marching to
the Capitol, a person could march to
the grocery store and buy food for a
mother who thinks she can’t afford to
have another mouth to feed. Instead
of delivering elaborate speeches on
the evils of abortion, one could lend a
listening and understanding ear to a
mother struggling with serious deci
sions concerning her unborn child.
If, instead of donating time and
money to propagate the war between
activist groups, people would offer
their caring support directly to the
individuals who are considering abor
tion, maybe more of these individuals
would make the “Life” “Choice.”
The apparent war between Pro
Life and Pro-Choice activists is a
futile one centered on legalities. Legal
or not, abortions will continue be
cause the final decisions in these
matters are made by individuals, not
the government. The government
makes laws, but individuals decide
whether to abide by them.
We can never entirely take a per
son’schoicc away, but we can let that
person know we care and arc willing
to help.
Pytlik is a senior art and psychology
major and a Daily Nebraskan staff artist and
columnist.
Diversions not the same without Linden
Where’s Linden? He was hard to
find without a headline the first two
weeks of school — but now he’s not
even in Diversions at all? Why? And
will he be back?
I used to look forward to Jim
Hanna’s weekly entertainment articles,
and I find Linden to be just as enjoy
able. It’s nice to plan on seeing an
article you know you’ll enjoy each
Thursday.
Linden is different and fun, and I
hope I get to read more of him soon.
Diversions isn’t quite the same with
out Linden.
Carol Ann Becker
junior
art history
Rap singer’s message condemning, divisive
I am very disturbed by what I read
about Sister Souljah’s speech in the
article by Sean Green in the Daily
Nebraskan (“Rapper Sister Souljah
speaks on racial issues,” DN, Feb. 6).
Imagine what the response would
be if a white pop singer spoke on
campus, denouncing interracial mar
riage, proclaiming black social val
ues to be “fake," and that blacks should
not be trusted because they come from
“a long lineof lying, stealing cheats,”
and then implied that whites who
didn’t agree with her were somehow
very unhip and did not belong in the
presence of her enl ightened audience.
I would hope to see a riot of protesta
tion at the least.
We know about and we are at
tracted to Sister Souljah because of
her presence in the pop music media.
She herself represents media values.
And what does she offer us?
Opposing interracial marriage is
fine for Souljah personally — she is
free to marry anyone she can talk into
it — but I can’t see where Souljah
gels satisfaction from condemning
interracial relationships for others.
There are many happy couples who
will find her repressive intolerance to
be nothing more than a heartless form
of puritanical racism.
Sister Souljah implies that a black
man or woman should go through life
angrily rejecting white culture or else
risk being labeled an Oreo. I say that,
if a woman or man adopts cultural
influences that lead to a productive
and compassionate life, who are any
of us to condemn the source of those
influences?
Clearly, the peipctralion of slav
ery upon black Africans is a grievous
and abhorrent fact that haunts the past
and present of Africans and Ameri
cans. (It is important to remember
that Africans enslaved Africans long
before and after Americans and Euro
peans got involved in muddling up
Africa. In fact, it was only in the
1980s that Mauritania abolished slav
ery and even then a slave’s freedom
was contingent upon being bought
out of slavery.)
After recent travels in West Af
rica, I think it is safe to say that the
descendents of slaves in North Amer
ica have far more in common with the
cultures of this country than they do
—-—----—1 __
with African cultures. I believe Afri
can Americans, like all Americans,
sometimes look wistfully at their roots,
but they do it from an American per
spective.
As time passes, all of the branches
of the human species arc commin
gling with greater and greater fre
quency. If we humans should be for
tunate enough to enjoy a long future
of many more generations, most of us
will be kind of light brown in com
plexion. The ranting and raving from
various comers about the purity of
this or that race will cease to annoy
and bore future generations.
In the meantime, it is 1992 and the
social and economic chasm between
rich and poor is increasing, with blacks
occupying a disproportionately large
number of the growing underclass. It
is an ugly situation and it must change.
To address these inequities we will
need to look a lot deeper and do a lot
better than is possible with the sim
plistic and divisive perspectives of
fered by Sister Souljah.
Kent Miller
Lincoln
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