Life Communications - Volume 2, No. 19 November, 1992
This newsletter is intended to provide articles and news information to those interested in Pro-Life Issues. Questions to readers and
articles for submissions are strongly encouraged. All submissions
should be sent to the editor, Steve (frezza@ee.pitt.edu).
1) IVY LEAGUE COALITION FOR LIFE CONFERENCE ATTACKED
You might've heard from someone or read this in the NY Times; we
recently hosted the Ivy League Coalition for Life conference here at Cornell, and had quite a bit of trouble from a hundred or so
pro-abortion protestors. They stormed into our conference, interrupted it, prevented speakers from speaking, blocked people from entering, destroyed the microphone, spat on people. A couple of police officers were injured too. The mob was a mixture of radical groups like WHAM, Act-Up, and were mostly from out of town. Some of them even drove in from Michigan! A couple of police officers were injured during the
scuffle. Anyway, apart from a slight delay, and change in speaker
order, the conference went on as planned. Boy, it was an exciting day!
- Sanjay Hiranandani
2) DOCTOR ASSISTED SUICIDE FAILS IN CALIFORNIA
The California suicide proposition did not pass. ~46% said yes, ~54%
said no. My general feeling is that it did not pass based on moral
objection, but because it was a poorly written law that was open to abuse, etc..
California will also have two pro-choice senators, Barbara Boxer and Diane Feinstein. California also passed a term-limit initiative,
which in effect limits Senators and House to two terms each.
- Chris Durham
3) PROPOSITION 110 FAILS IN ARIZONA
Proposition 110 in Arizona failed 69% to 31%, and despite all the
hollering by pro-"choicers" that they won it, I believe there were a sizable percentage of pro-lifers who just couldn't swallow the
rape/incest exception. I know of at least two pro-lifers who simply left that part of their ballot blank, and I know of others whom I'm pretty sure voted "no" outright for that very reason.
Proposition 110 gave the pro-"choicers" exactly what they've been
telling us for years they wanted, a rape and incest exception. But
given that the pro-"choice" propaganda machine lies even to its own constituents, it is no surprise now in hindsight that they misled the pro-life community about what they would have been willing to accept.
The pro-life community delivered what they were led to believe was an acceptable compromise, when the pro-"choice" community was in reality unwilling to bend at all. In the end, we were faced with a
proposition which really nobody wanted, even many pro-lifers, and so it failed.
I do think it was a wonderful success in that Arizona was the first state in the union to have the guts to muster such public support and put such a thing on the ballot. The precedent has been set, and I can see it coming to ballot in other states from our example, and I can see it coming to ballot again in Arizona. I can foresee that if we
give up trying to please everybody and thus please nobody, if we aim to please ourselves, we will have much greater success. By that I
mean, next time, we'll put a measure on the ballot that does NOT have the rape/incest exception, we'll broadcast political ads of bloody
abortions, instead of the well dressed "reasonable spokeswoman" we had this time in commercials that insulted everybody by calling both sides
"extremist", and lo and behold, the race will be MUCH closer, and we may even win it.
- Suzanne Forgach
4) PRO-ABORT INCUMBENT LOSES IN SC
[ Abbreviated from a Nov 5 article by LEE BANDY, Staff Writer for the
Columbia, SC paper ]
The Religious Right and traditional Upstate Republicans combined to upset incumbent Democratic [and pro-abortion] U.S. Rep. Liz Patterson on Tuesday, political experts say.
Republican Bob Inglis, a 32-year-old Greenville attorney, overcame
long odds to defeat Patterson, a three-term incumbent from the 4th
District and daughter of the late Olin D. Johnson, a longtime
political power in the state. He was a two-time governor and served in the U. S. Senate from 1945-65. "Credit has to be given to mobilization of the Religious Right and the tradition of voting Republican up
here," Aiesi said.
On Sunday before the election, the Christian Coalition, the political arem of religious broadcaster Pat Robertson, distributed more than
200,000 voter guides to 600 churches in the four-county district. The flier spelled out the positions of Patterson and Inglis on such
hot-button issues as abortion, taxes, school prayers, and condom
distribution in the schools. Roberta Combs, state director of the
coalition, said, "We just tried to educate the Christians on the
issues." Patterson favors abortion rights.
The incumbent blamed her defeat on the coalition, accusing it of using the church as a political forum to organize against her. Inglis ran what political observers called a masterpiece of a campaign. He had a huge cadre of volunteers who engaged in old-fashioned politics:
door-to-door campaigning. "He was meticulously well organized," said Charles Dunn, a Clemson University political science professor and GOP activist.
Patterson won her home county of Spartanburg County by about 9,000
votes. But Inglis rolled up a 20,000-vote margin in vote-rich
Greenville and won by almost 6,000 votes out of about 200,000 cast.
Inglis ran a low-key, low-profile campaign. He meticulously
identified the key precincts and went door-to-door in the last two
weeks. "When you walk up on someone's porch and knock on their door, you're entering their world. You're giving them a chance to really
interact," Inglis said. Operating on a shoestring budget, Inglis
placed signs all over the district urging voters to reclaim Congress.
He successfully tied Patterson, a popular incumbent, to the
institution.
Patterson was elected in 1986 after Campbell, who represented the
district for eight years, moved to the State House.
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Note to the uninitiated: where it says below that Campbell, "who
represented the district for eight years, moved to the State House,"
it is referring to Carroll Campbell becoming SC Governor, which is
what he is now, and a very popular and influential one.
- Peter Nyikos
5) BACK-ALLEY ASSISTED SUICIDE HITS NATIONAL NEWS
In New York City a school teacher who has multiple sclerosis and is going through a divorce, decided that she didn't want to live. She
allegedly paid a 17 year old student to shoot her. The 17 year old
student did shoot her, but she survived the shot.
6) SCIENTISTS FOR LIFE BEING REVITALIZED
Scientists for Life is being revitalized, and membership is open to scientists (any field) and physicians. Contact Keith Crutcher, Ph.
D., Dept. of Neurosurgery, College of Medicine, U. of Cincinnati
Medical Center, 231 Bethesda Ave., Cincinnati, OH 45267-0515
7) READER RESPONSES
At the end of Larry Larmore's article on Carl's Jr., he said that we should not expect to see a chain in Mosocw or on the East Coast.
Perhaps not, but I did see a Carl's Jr. store in Beijing China! Dairy Queen, also rumored for its pro-life leanings, has a store in Beijing as well. How two stores known here for being owned by people who are anti-abortion got over to China, the country with the strictest
population control policy in the world, I'll never know.
Speaking of China's population control policy, I read in a book by
J.M. & S.H. Potter called "China's Peasants" that China's abortion
rate is comparable to that in the United States. The authors
mentioned this in order to lower the readers' "pre-conception" that abortion in out of control in China. What I got out of it is that our
"freedom to choose" country has the same abortion rate as a "condemned to choose" country - this is nothing to feel good about. It does not lower my fears about China's abortion problem; rather, it heightens my fears about OUR abortion problem.
- Rose Recchia
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I am afraid that I must disagree strongly with Greg Waldinger (sp?)
and others comments that I am a "dupe" because I consider myself
pro-life and yet planned to vote for Clinton. I believe that this
attitude is a classic example of missing the woods for the trees.
Yes, I will readily concede that Clinton's pro-abortion stance is
repugnant to me. However, Bush has done little more than pay lip
service to the broader issues of the pro-life movement. When the two candidates are weighed in the balance on all the issues (using
Cardinal Bernadin's "seamless garment" analogy) I believe that Clinton comes out ahead. Bush's concern for the unborn seems to end at birth;
his administration's lack of concern for poor women and children has contributed to an environment in which women can be wrongly convinced that abortion is "the only option". Clinton, however, despite his
tolerance for abortion, supports social structures and programs which mediate against this. Now perhaps the two will cancel each other
out--pro-child plus pro-abortion equals contradiction and nothing
more--but I think any changes which really do give women a "choice"
(instead of just the false choice of an abortion) are ultimately for the better.
- David Cruz-Uribe, SFO
7) READER QUESTIONS
About Animal Rights:
hooker@aristotle.ils.nwu.edu (BOB HOOKER) writes:
-Monday Rush said the following that in affect;
-
-Animals don't have rights - to have rights, one must be able to
-enter and keep agreements, which animals cannot do. People think
-that their pets have all sorts of rights, but man can accord
-animals only "protections" and not "rights."
-
-Unborn children can not enter into agreements, therefore the
-unborn have no rights, this would seem to argue strongly for
-abortion.
This is an interesting way to see it. Does anyone know any pro-life animal rights activists out there?
- Frances VanScoy
['Rush's argument is interesting, but also note that animals will
never have the ability to enter into an agreement (or even the
potential). Also, when used to defend abortion, the 'agreement'
clause essentially becomes the definition of a person - if you can
enter an agreement, then you are a person and have rights (such as the
right to life). Otherwise someone else can decide if you warrant any
protection (such as Animal-rights activists, or Pro-life activists).
Ed.]
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
The other day I received a membership renewal for University Faculty for Life. It occurred to me that since a lot of people on the net are connected with colleges and universities I would announce it so other interested people could join. Then it occurred to me that a lot of
the people connected with universities and colleges are students, not faculty, so I might as well include the address for student group(s).
- Marty Helgesen
[ If you have snailmail addresses for Student/Faculty/Professional
Pro-Life organizations, please send them to the editor.]
Quote of the Month:
'The 12-year Reagan-Bush nightmare is over -- for women's
reproductive rights it truly is 'morning in America,
- Dr. David Andrews, acting president of Planned
Parenthood Federation of America.
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Credits:
4) Edited from a verbatim transcript of an article that appeared in
the Nov. 5 edition of Columbia, SC's only major daily newspaper,
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
QOM- Quoted from a Washington UPI Article dated Date 4 Nov 92 from
`clari.news.group.women'. Many thanks to reader Caleb Cohen.
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Anyone desiring information on specific prolife groups, literature, tapes, or help with problems is encouraged to contact the editor.
