Newsletter and Journal of the NCTC Republicans
Year II Semester 3 Issue 6
DATELINE: November / December, A.D. 1996
ABORTION!......ThE FoRbIdDeN iSsUe
What’s wrong, what’s right...
What’s left, what’s right.........
And how various NCTC students feel about it.
CONTENTS:
ABORTION!, Special Feature
Hype-Watch
Them People
Media, Beyond Lines
Other Features
ABORTION!
The Republican platform has always respected the value of human life, including that of an unborn fetus.
"We affirm our support for a human life Ammendment to the Constitution, and we endorse legislation to make clear that the 14th amendment’s protection applies to unborn children....We support the elimination of public funding for organizations which advocate or support abortion."
However this ‘protection’ has been said to be discriminatory and life-threatening to mothers within the party. The argument for years has been Choice to endure labor v.s. Protection of the fetus. Now, the argument has encompassed such issues as life of the mother, rape, and incest, and whether abortion should be practiced in these situations or not. We at NCTCR feel that controversy shouldn’t silence people from voicing their views on this subject, so long as their opinions are fact-driven and not blind to the harsh reality of it. Do not be offended if they question your stand on abortion (Questioning is part of the college experience, is it not?).
The following collection of essays was intended to show differing views of abortion. The pro-choice Republicans we asked to write declined for various reasons, and most liberals would not write for this publication, so naturally, most of the views do lean to the pro-life side [so be it].
"First, because I am a Catholic by birth, I’ll always have an inherent opposition to abortion. I’ll always be a Catholic.
Secondly, I feel compassion toward couples who are unable to conceive thus I believe that a woman carrying a child has a responsibility to the privilege of conception." [From interview.]
Cal MacDonald; NCTC Republican Sentinel
It’s truly hard to believe that a mammal as advanced and intelligent as man would even consider the idea of killing it’s own offspring before that child has had a chance to experience the world. This vile act of terminating pregnancy before the fetus is capable of survival as an individual is called abortion and it happens all the time.
Should abortion be legalized or even be a consideration of an expectant mother? Is a baby truly a living being in the first stages of pregnancy? These questions should never have been asked in the first place. Anyone who can rightfully say that a newly conceived embryo is not a living organism or that an eight week old fetus is not yet a human being with emotions and feelings of its own has no understanding of the definition of premeditated murder. The forceful termination of a human life, no matter how old, with deliberate purpose, previous knowledge and consideration of your actions, is nothing more that premeditated, cold-blooded murder.
I, as a female, could never consider or rightfully consent to the killing of a child of any age, race, or ethnic background. Abortion, in my opinion, is just as much a crime as walking up and firing a gun, from point blank range, at another person’s head. If, in America, each individual is truly endowed with freedom of choice, then a society who views abortion as a morally decent way of terminating a life is truly in every sense of the word--Evil.
Greg Russel; NCTC Republican Member
My views on abortion are readily recognizable to any human being with a conscience. Abortion is little more than a selfish means of convenience, by way of murder. We have all heard the arguments, the cases of exception, and the human rights angle, but abortion is genocidal as well as homicidal.
Allow me to clarify right away that the rights of a woman are really not relevant. After all, when a woman gets an abortion, she’s not pulling a tooth or having some malignancy removed, she’s allowing a human fetus to die. Her personal bodily rights are one issue, but in the case of abortion, her actions violate the rights of someone else. That fetus is human.
I understand that there are cases in which the pregnancy was caused by rape, or in which the birth might actually kill the mother. I am not oblivious to the hard truth, by any means. But life cannot always be based upon soft, cushy, ‘convenient’ decisions. It all comes down to one term, a term that if not for its lengths, would be a four letter word to some people: Responsibility. Without it in this issue, the unborn people end up suffering the consequence.
Andrew Hogue; President of NCTCR and Editor
I am told time and time again that abortion is a woman’s issue and that a man could never be able to sympathize with the feelings of the mother. I feel that reality presents a case for itself, that everyone, male and female, can relate to. If not, I would discourage any male from writing anything about abortion for this publication.
If abortion is made illegal, I am told that some women would have to break the law to perform an abortion, perhaps resorting to coat-hangers to perform the task. "How can you let girls your age suffer like that?", a certain liberal asked me. The liberal had a point, coat-hangers are dangerous, and killing a fetus should be done in a sanitary, government funded environment--so the mother can’t feel the same searing pain that the fetus would go through. Where’s the sympathy? I suppose that anything without a developed memory is considered non-living. Chickens have an underdeveloped memory and they lack sufficient nerve endings to sense pain as humans would, yet pro-choice animal rights people support the criminalization of cock-fighting in Texas (double standard?). Is a chicken worth more than a human being?
"But is a fetus a human yet, Andy?", the same liberal asked me. As a science fiction lover and writer, I lean toward a predestinationist viewpoint. I hold the position that abortion is comparable to traveling 5 years into the future and killing off a toddler.
"That’s different. Unprepared mothers are keeping their potential children from entering the world poor and un-nurtured.", my left-wing opponent continued. How much longer before we start mercy-killing our senior citizens for the same convenient, economic reasons? One day will we support putting retarted Americans ‘to sleep’? When are we going to abort fetuses due to over-populated cities, while loneliness continues to be the major cause of suicide? How far can this so-called ‘compassion’ go before we begin to kill our own citizens? I cannot both love mankind, and support abortion.
Randy Jackson; NCTC Republican Secretary
I am a Christian and one of the things that I have held true to belief is the Sixth Commandment, thou shalt not kill. I believe this has a very significant role in the modern debate over abortion. I draw upon the passage of Isaiah 44:2 to support my view. It reads: "Thus saith the Lord that made thee, and formed thee from the womb..."
The Declaration of Independence reads "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are LIFE, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness." I believe that if we cling to these principles in this great republic, then we can’t as consciencious human beings, deny these basic rights to an unborn fetus. It cannot enjoy these principles when the fetus is slaughtered in a "safe and clean" federally-supported clinic. That fetus has a right to live, whether it lives to be a day, a year, or a century. It has a right to exist.
The only case I could ever support abortion is in the case of [it] jeopardizing the mother’s life because I feel that it is much better to have one survivor rather than two victims. But the idea of having an abortion because you want to or if you can not support the fetus after its born, is simply inhumane. I can’t support the murder of an innocent fetus by a mother who believes she goofed by getting pregnant and doesn’t want to take responsibility for the results of her one-night stand. As a Christian I can’t stand by and watch supported murder. If we call extinct bacteria from Mars life, then what is a human fetus? It is not a bacteria that you can kill like the common cold, it is life and it must have the right to live and the government should make abortion a crime of murder. The doctor should be held accountable for to murder and the mother an accessory to it.
The only real solution to the abortion controversy is one word: ADOPTION.
Pat Ledbetter; NCTC Law Professor
Are you pro-choice or pro-life? Stop for a moment and just think about what a ridiculous position that puts you in. If you are pro-choice, does that mean you are anti-life? If you are pro-life, does that mean you are anti-liberty? Most of us know this is a simplistic, one-dimensional approach to a complex issue.
Nothing in our law requires one human being to subordinate himself to another. In fact, we aren’t even required to toss a rope down to a drowning man or rescue a child from a burning house. A parent can’t be required to give a healthy kidney to an ailing child. We trust human instincts to defend and uphold these situations.Yet there are those who would impose a legal requirement, complete with criminal penalties, on a woman that forces her to share her body for nine months, even if her health or her very life is at stake. This [law] if passed, would put the interests of woman and fetus potentially at odds. The law would forbid favoring one over the other, and if a pregnancy threatened the mother’s life, God would have to decide who lives and who dies, or the fetus might just have to go down with the ship. We don’t need such a legal requirement any more than we need to require people to fish a drowning child out of the water.
The biggest problem with the so-called pro-life position is that it is fraught with inconsistencies. Ironically, the same folks who insist that the government act to halt all abortions consider [big] government to be public enemy number one.
Babies, as we all know, start with SEX, and believe it or not, sometimes people have sex who aren’t even married. Such an activity is considered by some to be one of life’s great sins, and sin must be punished, at least female sin. Thus to these folks an unwanted pregnancy is God’s punishment for illicit sex, and God’s punishment must be carried out. Hey, if you want to punish women for having sex out of wedlock, make them wear a scarlet letter "A", but don’t force them to have a baby. Bearing a child is the happiest occasion this life has to offer. A baby should never come into this world as punishment for a lifestyle that some disapprove of.
Obviously, women will be less likely to terminate their pregnancies when they are confident that hate can care for their babies properly. But women must know that if they need help, it will be available without shame or guilt. After all, [most] everyone I this society has an interest in the well being of every child born in America. In a n America where women are respected and children loved, abortion will cease to be a major issue.
In short, my position on abortion is simply this: I believe that it should be a private, [and] not a political, decision. Women should be encouraged and helped to do what comes naturally-- carry their babies and love them with all their hearts. But the government, especially the federal government, should not force women to bear children or condemn them as murderers if they have abortions.
Worried? Pregnant? Need Help or know somebody who does? ABBA Women’s Center provides Free Pregnancy Testing, Volunteer Counseling, and Information on Adoption, Abortion, and STD’s. The office is located at 414 E. Elm (near the Turner Apartments) in Gainesville, Texas. Or you can call (817) 668-6391 or (800) 400-6010.
------------------------------------------------------------- HYPE-WATCH
If you have been watching any of the major news networks in the last month, you have probably noticed a growing suspicion and widespread condemnation of our Speaker of the House of Representatives, Newt Gingrich. He has been found out to have incorrectly filled out a certain document that deals with how much he recieved for campaign contributions (not a hard mistake to make given the complexity of the document). Why is it that President Clinton can be accused of sexual harrasment, proven a cheat with a real estate deal in Arkansas, linked to cocaine trafficking, seen entering night-clubs with Hillary and both leaving with different partners heading to different motel rooms, and shown on film down-talking free-enterprise on a trip to Russia, and the same networks rarely investigate those claims? In one 30-minute broadcast, Dan Rather can refer to Newt as a ‘wounded leader’ and then praise Clinton’s accomplishments. If the media is not biased to the left, then we know that it is, to a degree, pro- Clinton or anti-Gingrich (or both).
NOTE: Mr. Newt was re-elected Speaker, contrary to earlier media assaults that the moderate republicans would turn against him. -------------------------------------------------------------
Them People! The Semi- Regular Column By Wilson Perry.
Over the long history of man, we have attempted to place a source of all evils in this world. "Money is the root of all evil" is my favorite saying-- Never has anyone said anything so blatantly stupid in the history of man. [Perhps taken and orally misinterpreted from the Bible: 1 Timothy 6:10 which states the love of money is the root.] This is not to be taken as "Money is the root of all good", because money is merely a means of acting upon evil desres (just as easily a means of donating to charity, tithing at church, loaning to a friend, etc.).
People often ascociate Satan, or the Devil, as the root of all evil. Now this argument is definitely for theologians only-- Atheists need not apply. Satan is a powerful force, but he is not the root of all evil. Does Satan make the decision for a murderer to pull the trigger, or the thief to steal? No, the man decided to act, not Satan, not an abusive father, not a vindictive boss, and certainly not society alone. If God holds man accountable for his own sin, then should we not hold ourselves accountable for our own sins?
We should quit pointing fingers more often and look in the mirror for awhile. The United States of America is not doomed to fall any time soon, so long as we pursue moral goals. We should spend more time focusing on what may be right, instead of always exposing just the evils and wrongs of man.
Media: Beyond the Lines: Part II
By: Randy Jackson
In Part One I discussed the idea of an out-of-control yellow media. The incidents I mentioned were the Richard Jewell scare, the crashes of the Valujet Flight and TWA Flight 800, and the over-sensationalization of the grief of the crash victims’ families. Also discussed was the Nancy Glass comment, "we do what we do for a story". In this part, possible solutions will be discussed.
It should be the First Amendment right to freedom of the press, not anarchy of the press. We cannot promote censorship like fascist or communist countries do, but when a person’s rights are violated, then the line must be drawn there. I believe in freedom of speech and of the press, but it should not jeopardize the rights of American citizens to [keep] their privacy. For instance I would support a "grievance time" law for those who have lost family members in a natural disaster or an incident that involves many dead people. This law would grant about a 6 to 8 week time period to allow the families of victims to grieve for their loss. Then after that period the media can feel free to interview them. No more camp-outs on the lawn, either!
This yellow journalism must be reformed and I use the rise of the Progressive movement in the late-19th and early-20th Centuries as an example. Journalism at that era was much like today’s: Yellow, sensational, and commercial. They would trade human life for a dollar bill. If it takes the people to bring a progress to better journalism and keep people from being tried, convicted, and ‘crucified’ in the news studio, than so be it. After all, the government does derive its power from the consent of the governed. So if we are tired of this type of media, then we have every legal right to change it.
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Quote of the Month:
"The end of life is not to achieve pleasure and avoid pain. The end of life is to do the will of God, come what may."
-Martin Luther King: Atlanta, November, 1956
Every positive has a negative, every action has an opposite and equal reaction, and every rose has thorns. To kill a human fetus in order to avoid the hardship of child-raising, in the name of free sex, should be discouraged at all costs, for the negative effects of an abortion are quite severe (i.e. links to breast cancer, emotional/ physical trauma, etc). If you believe that an abortion is necesary, at least have half a heart and do it early-- To oppose the brutal killing of a baby just moments away (aka. partial birth abortion). To this writer, it seems as if the solution to this grinding issue is to temper our continuing quest for convenience with responsibility. It may sound old fashioned, but moral and Godly values are the best way to ensure individual responsibillity [Ed.].
NEXT ISSUE: Conservatives at Large!!!
See the lighter, and funnier, side of politics!