Abortion and You
By: William Thode
Abortion was popularized in the United States by Margaret Sanger, founder of the American Birth Control League, known today as Planned Parenthood. Though the name is more benign, the organization’s purpose remains the same. Interestingly enough, Margaret Sanger promoted abortion as a method of eugenics. Approximately 1.37 million abortions occur every year in the United States alone. [1]
On February 16th, 2009, Assistant Professor of Sociology Ziad Munson hosted a seminar at the Women’s Center. Munson’s speech centered on the research he conducted for his new book, The Making of Pro-life Activists: How Social Movement Mobilization Works. During the speech, he explored the pro-life movement and what motivates pro-lifers, with a focus on religious motivation. He also noted that public opinion on abortion is tilted toward the pro-life movement: only about 40% of the country believes in a woman getting an abortion for any reason. The speech did not go into great detail on his research, which is explained more thoroughly in his book.
An interesting thing to note about this situation is that the “Religion and Pro-Life” seminar was funded by a “pro-choice” organization, the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Freedom. Isn’t that a little odd? That would be like the Ku Klux Klan funding a Black Panther rally. They were even giving away free pens, sticky notes, bumper stickers, and buttons with the organization name inscribed upon them. Doesn’t this show an obvious conflict of interest?
A faculty member who wishes to remain anonymous had a problem with Professor Munson’s speech:
“He [Munson] asked rhetorically if the intense efforts of the pro-life and pro-choice camps were canceling each other out. I think he missed a larger point, and that is that the pro-life camp does not measure success in terms of changes in public attitude as measured by opinion surveys. Those surveys can be misleading; they can be interpreted in a number of ways. What is increasingly important to pro-life advocates, especially to pregnancy centers, is persuading women (and men) not to have abortions and then providing help to them and their babies. If you attend the fund-raising dinners and other events they sponsor, you will see them celebrate this tangible achievement more than any other. The pregnancy centers also offer help and counseling to men and women who have undergone abortions and are regretful.”
Professor Munson’s speech was very interesting, but what was even more interesting was what the Women’s Center handed out to students. A pamphlet entitled “Religious Organizations Support Reproductive Freedom” had an obvious pro-choice bias, electing to use the term “reproductive freedom” to lessen the elements of morbidity associated abortion. This pamphlet made an effort to point out the various religious organizations that support abortion.
One of the other issues discussed in the pamphlet is abstinence-only education versus “comprehensive sex education.” The pamphlet makes a blanket statement: “No abstinence-only until marriage program has been shown to help teens delay the initiation of sex or to protect themselves when they do initiate sex.” Also, the statistics they use quote a study that had no control group. All in all, the pamphlet is slanted in favor of comprehensive sex education.
With one-sided events like these, it is evident that The Women’s Center may not be the objective and nonpartisan organization it purports to be. Why should part of our tuition go toward funding a center that only represents women with a certain ideology, when its purpose is to represent all women? The Women’s Center even gets pro-choice groups to fund pro-life seminars. Why? They could not answer that question.
Source:
[1]: http://www.abortionno.org/Resources/fastfacts.html
