Guest columnist
Top 10 reasons why pro-choice side is wrong

By Sylvia Sullivan
Special to The Times

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Today marks the 31st anniversary of the infamous Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision. Its legacy is the deaths of over 40 million babies.

While pro-lifers mourn, the pro-choice side celebrates. They have the courts and the laws. We claim the truth. With this top-10 list, the gauntlet is thrown down to the pro-choice side that they have been horribly wrong.

10. Abortion is a very complicated issue. Actually, it is simple enough for a child to understand. Nationally known speaker Janet Folger reduced the debate to its essence, stating, "Live baby good. Dead baby bad."

9. It is a byproduct of conception, a blob of tissue and not a baby. Medical advances such as ultra-sound, unavailable in 1973, demonstrate that the fetus is indeed a fully formed unique human baby.

8. Abortion will help reduce child abuse, since every child will be a wanted child. This is another of the unfulfilled promises of Roe v. Wade. Abortion has cheapened life, resulting in skyrocketing child abuse. For example, infant homicide rates more than doubled and reached a 30-year high in 2000, after 27 years of legal abortion.

7. Abortion must be available for cases of rape and incest. Legalization of abortion was demanded because of hard cases. Alan Guttmacher Institute research paints the grim reality. Only 1 percent of abortions are done due to rape or incest. About 93 percent of all abortions are for social reasons. This includes fears the baby will interfere with work, school, relationship with husband or partner, economic situation or social status.

6. To be pro-choice is to be pro-woman. Ironically, a cruel twist in this debate is that generally men are more pro-abortion than women. Young men ages 18-25 are the most pro-abortion. Sidewalk counselors at abortion clinics frequently witness the man pushing the woman to abort. Abortion remains a convenient escape of parental responsibility for men.

5. Legal abortion is safe for women. That abortion is dangerous is a secret kept by abortion supporters. Aborting women suffer more subsequent ectopic pregnancies, miscarriages, premature births, handicapped children, infertility, chronic depression and suicides than women who carry their baby to term. Especially disturbing is the connection between abortion and breast cancer, as observed in 27 of 33 studies worldwide.

4. Abortion will solve the problem in the woman's life. Actually, many women undergoing abortion lose their lives to the abortion. Consider the Blackmun Wall, which is a Life Dynamics Web site that lists women killed by legal abortions, along with the facts of the circumstances of their death. Although the site lists 347 women dead due to abortion since 1973, it is only the beginning, as they have many more names to be added. They found that an overwhelming majority of abortion-related deaths still remain to be verified. The RU-486 chemical-induced abortion death of 18-year-old Holly Patterson is particularly heart-wrenching. Her parents watched helplessly as she died tragically.

3. America is pro-choice. The polls are consistently showing that Americans are becoming more pro-life. A poll conducted by Zogby International reported that by a 53-percent-to-36-percent margin, the public supports the statement, "Abortion destroys a human life and is manslaughter." A recent Gallup poll found that 72 percent of young people between ages 13 and 17 believe abortion is morally wrong.

2. Pro-lifers are the radical extremists. Pro-lifers believe that all human beings have God-given intrinsic value deserving of respect and protection. They believe in loving options such as adoption and crisis pregnancy centers to help moms and babies. The pro-choice side fights to keep abortion legal at any time, for any reason and at taxpayer expense. They battle to preserve the barbaric procedure of partial-birth abortion. They support Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger, who wrote, "The most merciful thing that the large family does to one of its infant members is to kill it." In the same spirit, Democratic presidential hopeful Wesley Clark, when asked by a New Hampshire newspaper if abortion should be allowed all the way up through the baby's head coming out of the womb, responded that was up to the woman and her doctor.

1. Abortion on demand has improved society. We can never replace the over 40 million little ones taken by 31 years of abortion. Children bring such joy, like my little granddaughter. Kylee, 2, is full of life, with bright eyes, and happy smile. She melts the coldest heart as she hugs and says, "I wov you." It hurts when the least of them is snuffed out. Mothers, fathers, and families deserve better. We can choose life as we live out the vision of Thomas Jefferson, who stated, "The care of human life and not its destruction is the first and only object of good government." Our children are waiting and God is watching.

Sylvia Sullivan, of La Mesa, Calif., is president of the East County CRA, a conservative grass-roots volunteer organization, and a member of the San Diego County Republican Central Committee. E-mail her at sylvias@usa.net

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