Behind the Pro-Life Preaching

Crack! That was the sound of the Christian Right punching my jaw as I walked out of my Adams House room for dinner two weeks ago. Left in the door box was a "newspaper" titled "She's a Child--Not a Choice," printed by the Human Life Alliance of Minnesota Education Fund Inc. The cover was a color close-up of a "16-week-old baby developing in the womb." On the back was stamped: "Distributed by the Harvard-Radcliffe Alliance for Life." At least that solves the mystery of how it arrived.

So what should we think of the door-dropping of this pamphlet? In general, we should applaud students' efforts to express themselves. Both Minnesota and the Harvard-Radcliffe Alliance believe that they are helping the voiceless, that they are fighting for the rights of those who cannot be their own advocates.

But what about the right to loving parents? What about the right to an environment of financial security, where the child is safe from physical or emotional abuse? Is it "right" to bring a child into this world and then proceed to beat her? Of course, this is the exception, but in every state there are over-burdened social workers who can attest to the abuse and neglect that plague many children.

The first page of the pamphlet consists of a picture of a mother and her newborn as well as a letter from the president of the Minnesota Alliance who suggests, "Perhaps abortion isn't about women's rights after all!" Of course there is more to an abortion than the right to have one, but to deny all facets of the issue shows ignorance.

Below the page's fold, there is a column stating claims and corrections, such as "'the only choice' in abortion is between a dead baby or a live baby." What about a dead mother or a live mother? For instance, pregnancy can be dangerous for diabetic women, since a side effect can be a diabetic coma. But the alliance disallows all instances of abortion, even in cases of rape or incest.

So if a baby is orphaned, or a welfare family cannot afford another child, then the Harvard-Radcliffe Alliance is willing to work with the Human Life Alliance in paying for all costs, including hospital stays (even if the baby is born with a serious medical condition), childcare, clothing, diapers, formula and college costs. Its checkbook will be open. I admire its generosity.

On page eight, we see this statement in bold type: "Every year over two million requests for adoption go unsatisfied." Assuming this figure is true, these are requests for newborn, healthy, white children. If the Human Life Alliance believes that each life is precious, and each human life is "a lot of love," why doesn't it have a campaign to encourage other anti-abortion adherents to adopt the non-white babies and the six-, 10- and 15-year-olds who need love and a home? No such literature encouraging people to adopt was included in the magazine.

The personal appeal technique used on the back cover contains an account of one woman's experience of an abortion, with the requisite bold type and exclamation points, a style used more in diet advertisements than in journalism. The same woman who now counsels "youth groups and students about abstinence" had tried to get pregnant again after her own abortion. Nowhere in the story is there evidence of planning a family or creating a home.

This woman was too young to drink, and yet she was attempting to grow up by having a baby. At best, she is unthinking. She writes that at the abortion clinic, she was allowed to neither see the ultrasound nor speak to her friend before the procedure. A women's studies concentrator with whom I recently spoke interned at Planned Parenthood and said that such a clinic is not typical. "[To act that way] would be an abomination at Planned Parenthood, at least the one where I worked."

Later in the magazine, there is a column of testimony by a former clinic worker (whose employment position is never made clear) who says that at her clinic, abortions were performed on "non-pregnant women." In addition, they "didn't do any real counseling." In fact, she says, her motive for working there was "money, money, money." Although not a medical doctor, she was going to "net $1 million." Perhaps instead of criticizing abortion, she should do a little soul searching.

More hard-to-believe testimony comes from David C. Reardon in his article entitled "The Abortion Experience for Victims of Rape and Incest." It uses data from 1979 to assert that "the vast majority of incest victims want to carry their pregnancy to term." If they do, then why is the case of incest so often used as the paragon example of an unwanted pregnancy?

So what's the alternative? There isn't an article on abstinence, there isn't a column counseling teenage girls about society's sex pressures and there isn't any discussion by a happily married couple describing the joy and responsibility that come with sexual activity. There is no recommended path to follow, no acceptable way to live. The magazine's writers have created a void.

So what can we think of the Harvard-Radcliffe Alliance for Life? We can only ask that they consider their actions more carefully and that they refrain from using borrowed, sub-standard material for shock tactics.