laura@utzoo.UUCP (Laura Creighton) (03/31/84)
I get the strange idea that there are a lot of people out there who think that it is better for the fetus to be dead than poor. I belive that this is false. I wonder how many people who hold this belief have actually been poor. While I have never been poor by third-world standards, I was five before my father graduated from University. My mother was doing some work at the time, but mostly we lived on academic scholarships and a bank loan. When my father graduated the first thing he did was buy a house, since before time we had been living with his parents. It was nearly a year before we had any beds in that house... It may be that being poor was good for me. I do not think so, and I believe that our whole family would have been a lot happier if there had been more money, but I am still absoluely convinced that I am better off having been poor than being dead. I find it extrememly ironic that my parents were precisely the sort of college people whom many people feel *must* have an abortion since a child would ruin their lives. Somehow, neither my parents nor I feel that I have ruined their lives. therefore, if having a child really can destroy somebody's life, they must be very different from my parents. If this difference is objectively measurable (and I believe that it must be if it is real) then you should be able to segregate the people who can have children at the present time from those who can not. Ideally the people should be able to decide which camp they are in on the basis of this reality. Then, those who will not be destroyed by having a child can have sex with the understanding that if they engender a child they will be responsible for it and that they are capable of handing that responsibility. Those who believe that they will be destroyed by having a child (and those who believe that they will not be destroyed but who do not want to engender any children) should be provided with 100% effective means of birth control. It is only then that sex without the possibility of pregnancy becomes a viable choice, since it is only then that this is a reality. * * * I wonder -- this talk of ``an unwanted child ruining a person's life''. I do not think that it is possible for any person other than yourself to ruin your life. The only exception to this is if you are killed by anotehr person. Then another person has ruined your life. (Yes, this implies that if a mother's life is in danger then an abortion may be necessary. This is the only case where I can see that an abortion is justified if the fetus is a human being.) You do not have to raise the fetus. You do not have to get married because of it. You may have to stop work for a few weeks, or stop going to school. You may have to endure the dissapproval of others. You may be uncomfortable for a few months. However, all of thse things do not have to ruin your life. Even if you did absolutely nothing for 9 months, the most you would lose is 9 months, not your whole life. There are pleanty of things which one can do over 9 months! Read. Go to Art Galleries. Think. whatever -- being pregnant does not make you a vegetable! After the child is born you are not obligated to keep it. you can then go back to doing whatever you were doing before (if you stopped for some reason). If you are uncomfortable with teh stigmata of being an ``unwed mother'' you can eitehr get used to not giving a damn, or you can move somewhere else where the people do not know your past. you can transfer from one university to another and you can switch jobs... so where is the ruin? -- Laura Creighton utzoo!laura "Capitalism is a lot of fun. If you aren't having fun, then you're not doing it right." -- toad terrific