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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 22, 1998)
JOSH MOENNING is a sophomore political sci ence and advertising major and a Daily Nebraskan columnist. On Monday, we remembered and honored a man who spent his life battling social injustice. Today, we remember a Supreme Court decision that has led to one of the greatest social injustices this nation has ever known. On March 6,1857, the U.S. Supreme Court decided by a margin of 7-2 that a black man “had no rights which a white man was bound to respect,” and that blacks were non-citizens - essentially non-per sons in society. Twenty-five years ago to this very day, our Supreme Court ruled that children in the womb were not legal “persons” and had no rights which their mothers were bound to respect. It is often stated that history repeats itself. In this case, that seems disturbingly true. For myself and most students on this campus, Roe vs. Wade has been in effect our entire lives. Most of us could legally have been exterminat ed. Millions of our brothers, sisters and classmates have been taken from us. What did we do to deserve this early execution? Some of us were conceived at the wrong time, some of us were ■ t i ' , W.f ■, * believed to be mere “clumps of tis sue, like one’s tonsils or toenails,” some of us were the innocent off spring of unfortunate rape, and still more of us were simply not wanted by those who brought us into exis tence. Today, 25 years and more than 35 million innocent deaths since the installment of Roe, members of my generation face a dilemma. Do we continue to listen to and naively believe every word that the ridicu lously pro-choice biased media tells us? Do we blindly accept the popular concept that abortion is all about a woman’s right to choose without ever exploring the other side of the issue? Do we ignore this issue that never seems to go away and say nothing, never seeming to care and never daring to take a stand? Or do we seek to learn the other side of the story, however unpopular it may be, and decide that it’s time to tell the truth about what Roe has really done to this country? In order to tell the truth, we must first discover it. Unfortunately, many disturbing facts regarding abortion are pur posely hidden from us by the nation al media. An interview by Marvin Olasky in his book “The Prodigal Press” showed that out of240 jour nalists and editors in the media elite, a full 90 percent approve of abortion for almost any reason. This bias is often obvious in their reporting. Pro-life demonstra tions that officially number 300,000 people are reported to number 60,000, while pro-choice rallies that number 125,000 officially are reported to number 300,000. How many times have you heard peaceful abortion opponents labeled as militant radicals and fanatics? We are exposed to this bias every day. News reports often feature and praise die pro-choice position while either ignoring or belittling pro-lif ers. It is no wonder many of us come to accept pro-abortion arguments - it is all we were ever told. In the past, the goal of good journalism was to report objectively, exposing both sides of any story. Apparently, the rules have changed. Self-education is a must for those of us who seek the truth. Reliance on the press will provide us with only one side of the story. Like in any issue, one must make himself aware of all the facts pertaining to it. Listed below are just a few examples of information on abortion and the pro-choice movement that most media would never voluntarily offer you: ■ From the beginning, the pro choice movement has relied on and deceptively used fabricated lies to promote its causes. Former abortion rights activist and co-founder of the National Abortion Rights Action League, Dr. Bernard Nathanson, admits that he and other leaders in the pro-choice movement fabricated the figure that 1 million women were getting illegal abortions per year prior to legalization. The real figure, he confesses, was about 98,000. He also admits to having lied about the “5,000 to 10,000 deaths a year” he and others claimed resulted from illegal abortion. Research now confirms the actual number of abor tion deaths in the 25 years prior to 1973 averaged 250 a year. In 1972, when abortion was still illegal, there were only 39 maternal deaths result ing from abortions. More currently, Dr. Ron Fitzsimmons, the executive director of the National Coalition of Abortion Providers, has admitted that, on a November 1995 episode of “Nightline,” he “lied through (his) teeth” when he said that the proce dure known as partial-birth abortion was used rarely and only on women whose lives were in danger. In fact, he claimed that in the vast majority of cases, the procedure is performed on a healthy mother with a healthy fetus that is 20 weeks or more along. ■ Life begins at conception. In 1981, a U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee invited experts to testify as to when life begins. Numerous prominent scientists testified that human life begins at conception and no time else. Pro-abortionists could not find one single expert witness who would testify that life begins at any point other than conception. ■ Contrary to widely held public belief, third-trimester abortion is perfectly legal in the United States under the loosely defined “woman’s health” statute in Doe vs. Bolton. ■ Abortion is the only surgical procedure in which the surgeon is not obligated by law to inform the patient of die possible risks of the surgery, or even the nature of the procedure. ■ Prior to the earliest first trimester abortions, the unborn child has every body part that he or she will ever have. At eight weeks, before most abortions are per- ^ formed the child’s every organ is in place, and his fingerprints are begin ning to form. ■ A majority of Americans did n’t want abortion-on-demand in 1973, and 25 years later, a majority still don't. Colorado, in 1967, was the first state to legalize some abor tions. Fourteen states shortly there after allowed abortions under very restrictive conditions. Another 33 states debated the issue in their leg islatures and all 33 voted against legal abortion. Just two months later, seven men on the Supreme Court decided that abortion-on-demand should be enforced in every state. Many legal experts were baffled. Bob Woodward wrote, “As a consti- , tutional matter, it was absurd.” Even Newsweek proclaimed, ‘With a wave of the judicial wand, abortion had become a constitutional right, y. without an accounting of why” And today, according to a CNN/Time poll, only 38 percent of the nation favors abortion-on demand. I cannot change your mind. I cannot make you care. All I can do is ask you to think ami seek out the whole story on abortion. Know that from the time of con ception, you were a living, growing human being. Don’t fall into believ ing that the right to choose is some how more important than every per son’s right to live. Know that being pro-choice means supporting a pro cedure that results in die death of innocent human life. Know that 150 years ago, slave owners justified their possession of slaves using a similar pro-choice argument. Learn all that you can. Decide which side of history you wish to fall on. after the LORI ROBISON is a senior news-editorial major and a Daily Nebraskan columnist. Not long ago, those who didn’t believe in the tenets of the Bible and/or die most popular organized " religion of die day were not tolerated to exist among the faithful. We now realize that everyone need not believe in die same diings. We live in a country where the Constitution affords us the right to differ widely in what we accept as the truth. Twenty-five years ago today, the Supreme Court of the United States reaffirmed this basic right when it voted in the Roe vs. Wade case. In that landmark decision, die majority for the court recognized the fact that we are the supreme owners and guardians of our bodies and that no government body should have the right to dictate a specific use for a person’s body and internal organs. What was important in that deci sion was not the fact that abortion was made legal, it was die fact that a woman has the RIGHT to CHOOSE for herself what her internal organs will and will not be used for. But the rising tolerance of dictat ing personal and religious beliefs frighteivus that many ofusarecom and wfflnotdowith their bodies.511 decision that split a nation Women still need choice over their bodies John Keller, director of patient ser vices for Planned Parenthood of Lincoln, said many lawmakers on the federal and state levels have been pres sured by anti-abortion organizations to pass laws restricting a woman’s access to this legal procedure. And they are making progress. Ail but eight states and the District of Columbia have restric tions placed on a woman’s right to seek a legal medical procedure, with Nebraska being one of the most restrictive - parental notification for women under 18, a 24-hour waiting period and a limited ban on late-term abortions (almost all of which, according to the literature, is done because of health concerns to the pregnant woman). Last year, Congress passed a law prohibiting federal employees from choosing health insurance which covers abortions. Also, abortion options have been banned for women in prison and for women using military hospitals. In addition, former President Bush affirmed many anti-abortion ists’ views in 1989 by vetoing a bill that would have allowed pom women on Medicaid, pregnant as a result of rape or incest, the option of abortion. Even many in the anti-abortionist camp concede that women should be allowed to get -- cies resulting fi But as Busb canonh . National Right to Life Committee, has stated she wants nothing less than a reversal of Roe vs. Wade. “We’re doing these other things in the interim until the political situa tion changes so we can make (a reversal) happen,” Franz said in a Jan. 17 Journal Star article. Even Sarah Weddington, the attorney who argued for the pro choice verdict in Roe vs. Wade, con cedes that there could soon be so many obstacles to getting an abor tion that many women won’t make it to die procedure. This is because all the efforts by anti-abortion lobbyists have not been focused in the legislatures. It’s harder today for a woman to even get infor mation about or find a doctor willing to perform an abortion. And in places where the legal right for a woman to choose abortion is still being exer cised, employees are harassed, and women must be shuttled by volunteer escorts through crowds of protesters - some screaming profanities, a few resorting to violence. Keller said of the thousands of medical practitioners, gynecologists and surgeons throughout the state of Nebraska, only four or five - mostly in Omaha - are still willing to endure the harassment and protests to per form a medical procedure declared by the Supreme Court to be a woman’s right to receive. Even public opinion seems to be turning toward keying the law allow ing a “choice” of abortion on the books so long as the “choice” made is a result of a narrow list of specific cri nancies resulting from rape or incest According to a recent New York Times/CBS News Poll, 32 percent support available legal abortion, down from 40 percent when the poll • r. I rif’/iJYiiii1 fiSif ryirt aurnrr was last taken in 1989. Of that 32 percent, 45 percent thought restric tions should be placed on a woman’s legal right to seek the procedure, up 5 percent from 1989. It is the overall attitude of many on both sides of die abortion issue that women arrive at the decision to have an abortion lightly and carelessly, which shows a general misunderstanding of the torment marry women go through before deciding upon the procedure. These women do not decide on their way to the supermarket to pop by the doctor’s office for an abortion. It is, for most, an extremely private, personal decision arrived at after days or weeks of heart-wrenching decision-making and discussions with their doctors. But if the anti-abortion organiza tions ever succeed in a reversal of Roe vs. Wade, women will return to being little more than procreation machines in the eyes of the law. - Never mind the fact that millions of girls and women underwent tor turous methods of abortion before it was legalized and that those same methods will certainly resurface along with “Joe Butcher” and his coat hanger if a reversal is achieved. It’s happened before. According to a 1992 San Jose Public Television documentary, “When Abortion Was Illegal” which aired Monday on Lincoln public tele vision, abortion was not only a legal procedure performed by midwives until the mid-1800s, it also was a procedure sanctioned by medical doctors and church officials. But by 1850, efforts by estab lished medical practitioners to domi nate the medicinal world and squelch midwifery resulted in abortion becoming an illegal procedure. Church and legal officials soon fell into the party line. The documentary went on to report that on any given day in any emergency room in any large city, women would check in to receive treatment from botched abortions. Some bled to death, and others died from infections. Some luckier patients were just rendered sterile. Many pro-choice believers hail the Roe vs. Wade decision as some thing long overdue. “Thank God,” many say, “that coat-hanger abor tions in back-alley clinics don’t have to happen anymore.” T Keller said representatives of Planned Parenthood are not raalcmg the issue “a big deal,” and that toe organi zation’s position was only to protect a law already on toe books. But he added that as the grass-roots-level restrictions mount, “some mobilization” will have to happen to protect that law. Make no mistake, the opposition is making progress in chipping away at the rights guaranteed in Roe vs. Watte. These groups will continue to do so until toe dark days of botched, back-alley abortions return and toe government will again hold the final authority over and ownership of a