Saving lives worth sacrifices
Thank you for running the article on the recent anti-abortion demonstration at Northern Kentucky University. A majority of NKU faculty, staff, alumni and students may be for abortion rights. Universities, however, are supposed to be places where a diversity of ideas can be expressed in an atmosphere free of fear.
Therefore, I have volunteered to be a faculty sponsor of an NKU anti-abortion student organization; Northern Right to Life.
It amazes me how many NKU professors and staff have anti-abortion views but fear openly admitting it. It also amazes me that many anti-abortion students feel they must ape a professor’s abortion rights views to pass a course. I hope these fears are unfounded.
America values individualism, and the Constitution outlines our individual freedoms. We all want to be recognized for our own unique talents and to develop as individuals. However, at some point, the line that separates the development of the individual from the cult of the individual has been crossed. In the cult of the individual, only ‘I’ matter.
The mantra of the egotistical cult is “I deserve it” and that to sacrifice for the good of others is merely to play the fool. I have experienced a very different value system in working and living with traditional Native Americans, self-effacing traditionalists who put the good of the group above any individual success or freedom.
People who ascribe to anti-abortion beliefs often share this viewpoint. Caring for the babies, the elderly and the terminally ill restricts a person’s freedom as an individual but are responsibilities that we as individuals have to others.
In the culture of death, ‘procedures’ such as abortion, euthanasia and capital punishment get rid of those troublesome, time-consuming people who restrict our freedom.
But in the culture of life, individuals embrace the responsibilities of helping others and, in doing so, develop character, charity and comradeship. Such people may not achieve every career goal, win a lot of awards or gain fame and fortune. But what they get is something far more valuable. What they do end up with are lives with meaning.
Sharlotte Neely, Ph.D. Professor of Anthropology Abortion actually saves lives
Being a baby boomer puts me in the “back-in-the-day” pre-Roe v. Wade era and believe me when I say moralistic platitudes have little to do with reality.
With the erosion of abortion rights, that sign reading “Reproductive freedom murders 4,000 children per day” can be changed to “No reproductive freedom murders and mutilates 1000s of women per year.” In one year in the 1960s, several thousand women were treated in hospital emergency rooms for botched abortions, and more than 200 died.
A 1974 Ms. Magazine issue carried a police photo of a dead woman on a motel room floor. A 27-year-old mother of two who was estranged from her violent husband. She was kneeling with her legs bent to her chest, bloody towels bunched under her. She bled to death scared and alone.
Patricia G. Miller’s book ‘The Worst of Times’ describes the tragic deaths of desperate women. It was the legal system, not the illegal abortionist, that killed these women. Thousands of women don’t have the comfort of choosing motherhood. Some are victims of rape, housewives incapable of caring for more children, scared teenagers, or poor.
The term ‘Partial-birth abortion,’ according to Eleanor Cooney author of ‘The Way It Was,’ made up by anti-abortion advocates to use in place of the medical term (D’X, or intact dilation and extraction).
Also, she needs to brush up on the law. The Eighth Amendment bans “cruel and unusual punishment.” D’X is not a punishment, but simply a medical procedure.
Though it involves a fetus, powerful reasons force her decision and it is hers to make. I don’t advocate murder but abortions will be performed, regardless of legality or safety.
When President George W. Bush signed the Partial Birth Abortion Ban, which has no exceptions, into law the United States took a shameful leap backwards into barbarity. Narrow, punitive anti-abortion legislation bears dire ramifications, and anti-abortion activists disguise ignorant cruelty as morality.
An enlightened society should strive to educate and empower women, not revert to the bloody coat hanger era. Are mutilated and dead women preferable to legal abortion?
Sharon R. Stevens Senior Sociology