Letters to the Editor

Abortion as birth control: A pro-abortion organization recently claimed that pro-lifers "cause" abortion by "opposing sex education and birth control." An abortion fanatic said, "Anti-choicers say abortion is murder because it destroys a fertilized egg. Well, so does an IUD or Norplant. It's really birth control they oppose." Using abortion as "birth control" (routinely and repeatedly) rather than just in the "hard cases."

Letter Number: 159

Politicians who advocate abortion have claimed that people who oppose abortion also contribute to abortions by opposing sex education.

Let's be clear about what pro-abortion politicians mean by "sex education."

Planned Parenthood and other Pill-pushers only make money if people are having sex while trying to avoid pregnancy. They make their money from distributing contraceptives, performing pregnancy tests, and selling abortions. Don't let the fact that they "provide" these services for "free" fool you. "Free" services are charged to the government. That means that you and I pay for them. The Pill-pushers still get their money.

If people are only having sex when they intend to have children, Pill-pushers sell no contraceptives. If people are using contraceptives effectively, Pill-pushers can't charge taxpayers for "free" pregnancy tests. If there are no unplanned pregnancies, Pill-pushers sell no abortions. And if their worst nightmare comes to pass--someone carries a pregnancy to term--they lose all three income sources. They aren't selling her contraceptives, "free" pregnancy tests, or an abortion.

Clearly, the only motive the Pill-pushers can have for sex education is to sell the only three products they have to offer: contraceptives, pregnancy tests, and abortions. Why do pro-abortion politicians think we are monsters for wanting to keep these people away from our children? Because they get campaign funds from the Pill-pushers in exchange for their promise to keep the tax money rolling in.

I put people before profits. If that makes pro-abortion politicians and the Pill-pushers hate me, so be it.

Letter Number: 160

A pro-abortion organization recently claimed that pro-lifers "cause" abortion by "opposing sex education and birth control."

Don't let their rhetoric about wanting to prevent unplanned pregnancies fool you. Unplanned pregnancies are a big business, and no business eliminates its own customer--the abortion industry included. The reality is, their life-blood is three products: contraceptives, pregnancy tests, and abortions. If there were no sexually active teens, no unplanned pregnancies, and no abortions, Planned Parenthood and other abortion clinics would go bankrupt. Can we believe that they really want to destroy themselves? Only if we're fools.

Parental notification, waiting periods, and informed consent have resulted in lower abortion rates. But when people are able to institute laws that protect the rights of women and families, pro-choice advocates get angry. Obviously, preventing abortions isn't on their agenda.

Abortion advocates are the ones opposing measures that reduce the "need" for abortions. The whole sex education thing is a red herring. What they call "sex education" is just marketing contraceptives, pregnancy tests, and abortions.

We might just as well claim that cigarette ads reduce smoking as claim that sex education reduces the number of abortions.

Letter Number: 161

Abortion supporters have claimed that people who oppose abortion cause abortions by opposing sex education.

These abortion enthusiasts have assumed that pro-lifers are opposed to all sex education and birth control. People like Planned Parenthood and the NEA are constantly trying to shift the blame for their failed policies onto us. They try to make our opposition to their kind of sex education the cause of today's teenage pregnancy problem. This is hogwash. These problems are a direct result of 25 years spent by our public school systems teaching exactly what groups like these advocated in the sixties. The fact is, we are not opposed to sex education, but the kind of sex education these guys push. In other words, we oppose that approach which has caused an epidemic in teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.

I don't mind being openly opposed to something that has created so much misery and tragedy. My question is why some people don't mind being associated with the programs that caused so much misery and tragedy.

Of course, for Planned Parenthood, the sex education disaster wasn't a tragedy; it was a financial bonanza. Maybe that's where we differ. I put the welfare of our kids ahead of the almighty dollar.

Letter Number: 162

Abortion advocates have claimed that people who oppose abortion cause abortions by opposing sex education.

In the sixties, pro-abortion groups began to promote their version of sex education in the public schools, which was based on "neutral" values and contraception rather than abstinence. They claimed the way to reduce the then relatively small teenage pregnancy rate was to separate morality from sex and teach kids the mechanics of having sex without getting pregnant. Now, let's just look at what the "values-

neutral" approach did. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that if you tell kids that something as enjoyable as sex is neither right nor wrong, they're naturally going to do it more often! The justification for leaving morality out of sex education is that the parents would handle teaching sexual morality. However, Planned Parenthood originally sold America on the idea it needed sex education in schools by saying that parents don't talk to their kids about sex. Now, if parents weren't talking to their kids about sex before it was being taught in the schools, what was going to make them start doing so afterward?

What "values-neutral" sex education did was increase the number of sexually active teens. Even if all teens used contraceptives, more of them having sex means more of them getting pregnant. More pregnant teens means more abortions. More abortions means more money for Planned Parenthood.

Need I say more?

Letter Number: 163

Abortion supporters have claimed that pro-lifers cause abortions by opposing sex education.

Those who advocate contraception-based sex education rightfully point out that they encourage the use of many forms of birth control. However, to work, these require a combination of discipline and long-range planning ability which the majority of teenagers don't have. In fact, Planned Parenthood has known for years that telling kids about contraceptives increases the number of children having sex, but has little impact on their contraceptive use. All it seems to succeed in doing is teaching kids that they ought to be having sex.

The bottom line is, Planned Parenthood tells teenagers that contraception allows them to enjoy risk-free sex, when they've known all along that once those teenagers become sexually active many wouldn't use it, and many of those who did would get pregnant anyway. Their own words prove they knew that pushing contraceptives would increase teenage sexual activity at a greater rate than it would increase the use of the contraceptives being pushed. They knew the result of that would be exactly what America now faces: a teenage pregnancy and abortion epidemic. Today, it's painfully obvious that Planned Parenthood's sex education system was never intended to teach teenagers how not to get pregnant, but how not to give birth. After all, that's what keeps Planned Parenthood's cash box full.

Letter Number: 164

Abortion supporters have claimed that pro-lifers cause abortions by opposing sex education.

Initially, one claim of Planned Parenthood's sex education program was that girls were unfairly held to a higher standard than boys. In reality, there was only one standard (abstinence), which girls lived up to better than boys. These social engineers inflicted their own "solution" upon us, telling parents not to insist on a higher standard of conduct for boys, but to accept a lower one for girls!

It doesn't take a genius to see that higher standards for boys would have meant fewer abortions, whereas lower standards for girls meant more.

It is no coincidence that the people seeking these lower standards are the nation's number one abortion profiteer. Planned Parenthood knew that teenagers, with their youth and inexperience, are the last people for whom this values-neutral, contraception-based strategy would be successful. Since it went into practice, every single problem associated with teenage sex has gotten exponentially worse. The only question is why a group of people would advocate such a thing. Why would they tell people to do something they knew would make things worse? The answer is as obvious as it is sinister: There's lots of money in teen pregnancy! Every pregnant teenager is a potential customer routing money into Planned Parenthood's coffers. It's about time we cut off their cash flow.

Letter Number: 165

Abortion supporters have claimed that pro-lifers cause abortions by opposing sex education.

We don't oppose sex education--we oppose setting kids up to get pregnant.

Planned Parenthood knew that giving teenagers the message that sex is just a recreational activity with no moral component would induce more of them to become sexually active. They also knew that contraceptive availability would not have a noticeable impact on contraceptive use among teens, who rely primarily on magical thinking to prevent pregnancy. When this values-neutral, contraception-based sex education produces more teenage pregnancies, it produces a steady stream of customers for Planned Parenthood's abortion business. The sorry truth is that their sex education system is a crucial element of their overall profit structure. It's a classic marketing strategy. They introduced a product (abortion), and created a demand for their product (values-neutral, contraception-based sex education). Just look at what's happened in the last 25 years. As Americans, have we become so naive that we don't question the motives of people who profit from abortion while continuing to push a system that has been proven to increase teen pregnancy? Remember, if you want to do abortions on teenagers, the first thing you have to have is pregnant teenagers!

This whole sex education thing was a scam from day one. It's time we put a stop to it. We've let enough of our daughters suffer from our gullibility.

Letter Number: 166

Abortion supporters have claimed that pro-lifers cause abortions by opposing sex education.

The pro-life movement has never opposed sex education. We want to solve this problem of teenage pregnancy as much as anyone else. However, we simply don't understand the rationale behind turning the responsibility to solve this problem over to the very people who helped create it and who financially profit from it. When teen pregnancy goes down, Planned Parenthood profits go down. And when teen pregnancy goes up, Planned Parenthood profits go up! The fact is that these people have a vested financial interest in seeing this problem get worse, so why would we trust them with the job of solving it? The whole concept is totally illogical. Whatever else someone thinks about these Planned Parenthood people, and regardless of whether they think abortion should be legal or not, surely they couldn't see this as anything less than a textbook example of a conflict of interest. Surely Americans aren't so naive they wouldn't ask themselves what possible motivation Planned Parenthood would have for lowering teen pregnancy, when doing so would be killing the goose that lays their golden egg?

Letter Number: 217

Pro-choicers complain, "Right-to-lifers try to paint pregnant women as irresponsible, but birth control does fail."

There is a very subtle and tricky statement. It implies that abortion advocates don't view abortion as birth control--that they see abortion and birth control as separate issues. Of course, this is not true. Abortion advocates have no problem with abortion being used as birth control. However, they are smart enough to know that the average citizen does have a problem with it.

This is also an attempt to portray pro-lifers as judgmental.

Abortion proponents are right--birth control does fail. The fact that birth control fails proves a belief the pro-life movement has always held: that responsible sexual activity is more than just using birth control. It is also being mature enough to accept the risks associated with having sex. It is recognizing, before you choose to have sex, that if whatever birth-control method you use fails, the consequence may be a child. Abortion is a way for people to avoid taking responsibility for their actions, even if it means that the innocent child they created has to die.

The very fact that abortion is used when contraceptives fail--or when they're not used at all--proves that it is just another birth-control method to many people. Of course, if abortion didn't kill babies, that wouldn't be a problem. But it's downright selfish to demand that your own baby die because your contraceptive--if you bothered to use one--failed.

Letter Number: 218

Proponents of legal abortion complain that, "Right-to-lifers try to paint pregnant women as irresponsible, but birth control does fail."

For years, abortion advocates said abortion would never be used as birth control. However, today we see that that's exactly how it's being used. The number of women having their second, third, or fourth abortion is rising every year.

In a column published in the January 21, 1988, New York Times, the very openly and vocally pro-abortion Kathy Pollitt wrote, "Moralists, including some that are pro-choice, like to say that abortion isn't or shouldn't be a method of birth control. But that's just what abortion is--a bloody, clumsy method of birth control."

Now, ask an abortion advocate some time if it bothers them that abortion has become a routine method of birth control. They can't really afford to say yes because that's not what they want people to hear. However, they also fear that if they say no, you're going to come back with something like, "Why not? If abortion is not killing a child, why would it matter why people use it?"

And that's the crux of the matter. If abortion isn't killing a baby, what does it matter why people use it? But if it is killing a baby, is any reason--short of saving the mother's life--good enough?

But this is one little moral dilemma abortion advocates would rather just ignore.

Letter Number: 219

A proponent of legal abortion recently complained, "Right-to-lifers try to paint pregnant women as irresponsible, but birth control does fail."

She is right that contraceptives fail. What she doesn't tell you is that the easier it is to get abortions, the more birth control fails.

The rabidly pro-abortion Population Council even published a report in 1977 showing that when abortion is readily available, many women become more careless with contraception. In fact, less than one percent of the women in their study lacked information about or access to contraception. The vast majority simply got careless because they knew they could just get an abortion.

In other words, legalized abortion is used to abort fetuses that never would have been conceived if it wasn't for legalized abortion. It creates its own demand.

Isn't that handy?

Letter Number: 220

An advocate of legal abortion recently complained, "Right-to-lifers try to paint pregnant women as irresponsible, but birth control does fail."

She then went on to try to appear reasonable by saying she is troubled by the need for so many abortions. Survey after survey studying the reasons women have abortions has found that 93 to 99 percent of all abortions are done because of lifestyle preferences, and have absolutely nothing to do with need.

But still, if abortion isn't wrong, why should its use--even in high numbers--be troubling?

The reason this abortion advocate gives lip service to being "troubled" by our astronomical abortion rate is simple: to pretend to have a conscience. Americans will forgive even the most heinous criminal if he is genuinely sorry and tries to atone for what he did. In order to continue to butcher babies for money, this abortion fanatic and her accomplices have to pretend that they're ever so sorry.

Of course, if they were, they wouldn't keep doing what they do. If Ted Bundy were sorry for all the women he killed, he'd have stopped killing. If an abortionist ever becomes troubled with the reality of abortion, he quits.

The truth is, abortion advocates knew that legal abortion would be used as just another method of birth control. If they had a problem with that, they never would have sought to decriminalize it to begin with.

Letter Number: 255

In a rather convoluted letter last week, an abortion fanatic said, "Anti-choicers say abortion is murder because it destroys a fertilized egg. Well, so does an IUD or Norplant. It's really birth control they oppose."

Let me point out something abortion choicers always seem to leave out of their scare tactic over birth control.

Since 1973, there have been numerous attempts to pass a Human Life Amendment. The wording used excluded women not known to be pregnant. This same concept has also been applied to state and federal legislation. Not one of these attempts to stop abortion would have had even the potential to affect any form of birth control other than induced abortion.

Yes, it is true that the IUD and some other forms of birth control do indeed act as early-term abortions. And we take every opportunity to point it out. It is indefensible that there are women who would never knowingly submit to an abortion, but are in fact having abortions because the people who manufacture and sell these products don't fully inform the consumers. And we will not apologize for making women aware of these facts, and for letting them know that there are other effective family-planning options available. However, this rhetoric about us wanting to make birth control illegal is nothing more than a lie, a tactic used to try and scare people into not looking at the real issue--killing children for profit.

Letter Number: 390

Twenty-five years ago, when abortion advocates were selling the idea that abortion should be legalized, one of their tactics was to assure people that it would only be used for the so-called "hard cases." They said it would never be used as birth control. It would simply replace the illegal abortions that were happening anyway. But that's not what has occurred. Today, abortion has become big business, and approximately 40 percent of women having abortions have had at least one previous abortion. But pro-choicers won't even discuss, much less contemplate, steps to stop abortion from being used as birth control.

When you discuss this with abortion advocates, they usually try to change the subject. They will talk about rape and incest. They will make their usual bogus claims about astronomical numbers of women dying of illegal abortions. They will talk about pregnant abused 10-year-old girls. They will talk about anything but the real issue.

The reason is that they knew all along that abortion would be used as birth control. At least one study in the early 1970s showed that when abortion is readily available, many women become sexually reckless. They know that they can always get an abortion whenever they get pregnant.

Pro-choice advocates know how to prevent this: make abortion expensive and difficult to obtain. But they've spent nearly three decades doing just the opposite, making abortion cheaper and easier. And the repeat abortion rate goes up and up.

Of course, so do profits.

Letter Number: 391

When abortion advocates first started agitating for decriminalization, they claimed that abortion would never be used as birth control. But that is just what has happened.

When you bring up the subject, pro-choicers will typically deny that abortion is being used as birth control. But almost half of all abortions are done on women who have had at least one previous abortion. At last count, over 13 percent of abortions done in New York City were on women who had at least three previous abortions. The Department of Health noted that one New York City clinic did three abortions on one patient in four months. There are three possible explanations for this. Maybe pro-lifers are right, and abortion causes psychological problems including a pathological urge to keep getting pregnant. Maybe pro-lifers are right, and abortion is being used as birth control. Maybe pro-lifers are right and both dynamics are at work.

Of course, abortion mills won't quibble about birth control or mental illness. Since every abortion brings in money, any abortion is a good abortion as far as pro-choice advocates are concerned.

If you don't believe it, try getting an abortion advocate to agree to take steps to stop repeat abortions. Don't let them wiggle out with any baloney about contraceptives. They know that almost 99 percent of women having abortions know all about contraceptives and can easily get them.

Women have multiple abortions because abortions are cheap and accessible. And no pro-choicer will ever consent to change that.



Priests for Life
PO Box 236695 • Cocoa, FL 32923
Tel. 321-500-1000, Toll Free 888-735-3448 • Email: mail@priestsforlife.org