Gloucester Daily Times Debate on Abortion (3), November (20), 1985

Following the November 14 editorial, I gave response some days later, but my photocopy of the letter does not have the date on it.

_______________

Once Again, the Times is Wrong

Once again, the editorial perspective of the Times (November 14) has fostered a pro-abortion view that is narrowly based. Such a view advocates sexual promiscuity, especially among teenagers. Instead of teaching chastity, and focusing on the responsibility of coitus in terms of procreation, this view simply offers condoms and the pill and says, “Don’t get caught, and in case you do, abortion is available as a fix-it.”

How many people are willing to advocate promiscuity as a healthy pillar of society? And yet this is the rationale of Planned Parenthood et al. They treat sex as an animal urge for which there should be no boundaries. No wonder they are so high on birth control for teenagers and abortion as an escape clause.

The Times cites a list of “societal problems,” and correlates them to unwanted pregnancies. I may be so bold, even biblical, to suggest that the “greatest problem” is our willful disobedience to God and his order of creation. For marriage is held in contempt as antiquated, its boundaries of freedom and protection thwarted, thus it is little wonder to witness the breakdown of society. All of the problems cited are best remedied by chastity before marriage, fidelity in marriage, and parental love for their children as strengthened in that context. But alas, so many adults don’t teach or model that anymore. Fooling around is the name of the game. No wonder teenagers do the same.

It is needful to note that the dramatic increase in child abuse alongside the rise in abortion rates. No surprise, abortion abuses children before they are born. It kills them violently.

Congress does not have the Constitutional authority to supersede the Supreme Court, as part of the balance of powers. The Times is silly to protest that possibility. But aiming at the concern for the poor, let me paraphrase the question posed by Dr. Mildred Jefferson (the first black woman graduate of Harvard Medical School): If a poor, black, female teenager had the choice between a state-funded abortion, or the economic opportunities and social prerogatives of the white, upper-middle class woman counseling her, which would she choose?

Abortion kills nurture. And the family and society cannot exist apart from nurture. And the disenfranchisement and disadvantaged in our society cannot have hope unless all human life is nurtured and respected. After this black teenager has aborted, how is she better off? Is she any less poor, less discriminated against, less promiscuous, less vulnerable to the hard life of the inner city? Let’s address our resources to these great problems, and not the advancement of hedonism and abortion. The late Connecticut Governor Ella Grasso put it this way: “Let us not kill the children of the poor, and tell them how we have helped them.”

John C. Rankin, executive director, New England Christian Action Council, 11 Pleasant St.