abortion hearing highlights

This is a continuation of highlights of the proabortion hearings: A Woman's Right to Choose, which were hald September 7th at the Unitarian Society in Cleveland Heights. The hearings were sponsored by N.O.W. and The Emergency Abortion Task Force of A.R.O.A.L.

"There can no longer be any doubt that the subject we face today is a church/state issue. The drive to legally prohibit abortion is being led and financed chiefly by the top leaders of the Roman Catholic Church," asserted Anne Lindsay of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State in her statement presented at the Abortion hearings.

Ms. Lindsay continued, "The Catholic Church takes the official position that abortion per se is the taking of human life. But there is no concensus on when human life begins."

Justice Blackmun in the 1973 Supreme Court decision wrote, "We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins," but he added, "there has always been strong support for the view that life does not begin until live birth." Justice Brennan, the only Catholic on the Court, concurred in this opinion Ms. Lindsay pointed out.

As Rabbi Balfour Brickner declared at the Senate abortion hearings, "The coercive powers of the state must not be employed in the service of sectarian moral views. To do other. wise would be to violate the First Amendment," she concluded.

Del Jone" speaking for the Religious Coalition for Abortion Rights stated, "Abortion is essentially a power issue, any well organized small group can impose its convictions on the whole community." She said, "Women would continue to have abortions under illegal conditions," noting that there has been a 67% decline in botched abortions requiring medical care.

Dr. John Sanders, an obstetrician-gynecol. ogist, noted the 1964-85 German measles epidemic as a major factor in changing views on abortion. He stated, "We all became grimly aware of the great damage rubella can cause in the fetus during early pregnancy, major birth defects of the eye, ear, heart and brain were seen. With this awareness came a re sponse and many physicians performed abortions, some for the very first time, to prevent these defects. These operations were done against the law for the most part, but the broad acceptance of this view made it possible."

Dear Sleters,

DK

7

lithograph by kaathe kollwitz

He listed other factors including the thalidomede tragedies, the Rh negative mother whose child is doomed from the beginning, the unwanted child and the battered child. He noted this new awareness as the beginning of the concept of the quality of life.

Dr. Sanders said one of the results of the liberalized abortion laws was, "It is notable that psychologically the patient usually shows nothing but relief. This is to be contrasted with the feelings of guilt that always occur in a mother placing her baby for adoption after a compulsory pregnancy."

The American Medical Association, the American Psychiatric Association, and the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecologists all endorse the liberalization of abortion laws, according to Dr. Sanders,

"Most women who want abortions are healthy. They are not mentally ill just

LETTERS

Here's our contribution of $25 to help our favorite feminist newspaper.

Love,

Dear WSW Sisters,

Cleveland Women's Counseling

I just read the Oct, issue and was appelled to hear sit you are in danger of folding! WSW is a tremendous, inspiring, informative, indispensable paper and it certainly shouldn't fold for financial reasons! So please accept this contribution even though you didn't ask for it,

I will go around tomorrow to some women in my page 8/What She Wants/November, 1974

class at CWRU School of Medicine and encourage them to subscribe of use the contribution as a gift subscription if need be. More women should be reading this paper,

The quality of all the articles just keeps getting better and better with each issue. I especially like Herstory and the book reviews for courage, and your plain factual reporting of the grass roots attitudes and barriers (that AFT official Alschold is an idiot beyond comprehension!)

Good luck W&W!

Love,

Judith 8. Recknagel

pregnant," stated Dr. Richard Schwartz, psychiatrist. He said that often bootleg abortions were obtained through psychiatric channels. A 1969 poll of psychiatrists showed 79.5% believed abortions should be available.

Dr. Irving Rothchild of the Department of Reproductive Biology at Case Western Reserve University said "considering a fetus as legally equivalent to an adult defies all the scientific knowledge about human reproduction, all of society's 'common sense' understanding of reproduction and development, and all of society's cultural attitudes toward human offspring."

"Any laws regulating abortion, except as a matter to be decided between the pregnant women, as an individual, and her physician, will not only fail to stop the commission of such acts, but will have consequences worse than the acts they attempt to stop," he added.

"A woman has the right to control her own body in a humane, safe and dignified way. Abortion continues to be a major health need for women. Whatever the law, women will need abortions," stated Judy Bigelow of Cleveland Women's Counselling.

Carole Banks presented her personal story and summed up her experience, "I have noted the overwhelming interest of men, professional and laymen, who have come to abortion hearings to expound on the horrors of abortion mostly, from a moral standpoint theirs knowing full well that they will never have to go through any of the physical circumstances that might force the same situation upon themselves. How dare they? Could women get up, time after time, expounding on, for example the need for vasectomy? Of course not, you say, women can't ever have vasectomies well, men can never bear children so I would say we evened the score. It has been said that if men bore children abortion would be a sacrament.”

"There is nothing we have to prove. Ours is the right to our own bodies. The supreme Court ruling of January 1973 must stand, unaltered, as at least one piece of legislative justice that pertains only to women, who are at least, and at last considered people by the highest court in the land," she concluded.

Good drinks at reasonable prices BOB'S PLACE

Honest Bartender Guaranteed!

2911 Mayfield Rd.

Adele's Pizzeria

321.6626

The Best Italian Pizza You'll Ever Eat CARRY-OUT ONLY:

321-2160

11 AM TIL 1 AM, AT LEAST 2909 Mayfield Rd.

Two friendly places, side by side!