The other right-to-lifers

...The law, they think cannot deal with souls...

...Hatfield, like Hughes, opposes abortion, capital punishment, and war...

...One of the women declared loudly that she didn't think her tax money should be used to help raise the children of "niggers and spies...

...sex 18 January 1980: 13 observable by nine weeks...

...Salines are done when the fetus is sixteen weeks or older...

...Juli Loesch makes the point in an open letter to friends in the American Civil Liberties Union...

...Hughes said that financing abortions' 'as an alternative to doing what we know is right is very simply a denial of all the human spirit stands for...

...She refers to the women's movement as "processing women through abortion mills to manufacture instant imitation-men who will fit into a society made by and for wombless people...

...Thus Daphne de Jong, a pro-life feminist of New Zealand, writes: "Of all the things which are done to women to fit them into a society dominated by men, abortion is the most violent invasion of their physical and psychic integrity...

...They see little, if any, moral difference between killirtg a fetus in the womb with salt solution and killing a Vietnamese baby with napalm...

...On the House side, there are also significant exceptions to the general rule, which is that liberals support the 1973 Suprerne Court decisions and also support public funding of abortions through Medicaid...

...He had concluded that liberalism "is no longer compatible with the rule of reason or the cause of justice...

...Denes, a supporter of the pro-choice, legal-abortion position, was shocked by the dismemberment of the fetus, particularly when she saw its tiny head resting on the instrument table...

...RIGHT-TO-LIFERS on the left are not optimistic about ending abortion in the near future...

...both are now dead...

...Pam Cira, President of Feminists for Life, says that her organization has ''two really staunch positions": support for the Equal Rights Amendment and support for the Human Life Amendment...

...Biologically, she already is a mother...

...Many pro-lifers on the left avoid religious arguments on the abortion issue—some because they are not religious, others because they think that public policy should be decided on non-religious grounds...

...She believes that ' 'I can no more control my body by destroying my child than I can insure my safety by building Trident submarines.'' McGowan has been arrested and jailed for demonstrating at a Trident plant, at the Seabrook nuclear power plant, and in an abortion clinic...

...I believed that no American should fight there, which compelled me to propose legislation expressing that conviction...

...So are many other radicals, pacifists and minority-group members...

...Going door-to-door in suburban Rockville, I came across a group of five to ten white people visiting in one apartment...

...ALTHOUGH the women's movement generally has supported legalized abortion and has called this a matter of women's rights, some feminists disagree strongly...

...One feminist suggests heavy fines for doctors who perform abortions...

...others declined...

...They think that imposing morality, in the sense of defining one person's obligations to another, is what the law is largely about...

...I also support, as a prior and more basic consideration, the right of everyone to live—and this includes the handicapped, the defective, the eccentric, the elderly, and children, regardless of their dependency, at every stage in their development.'' Elizabeth Moore, head of Feminists for Life in the Washington, D.C...

...Accepting the 'necessity' of abortion is accepting that pregnant women and mothers are unable to function as persons in this society...

...Abortion," said McCormack,' 'is put forth as a solution for the poor, but I think the poor want better housing, more jobs and food on their tables...

...They think that the proper analogy is the Thirteenth Amendment, which formally abolished slavery...

...It runs an intern program in Washington, D.C...

...Juli Loesch, like de Jong, sees abortion as a great convenience for men...

...A recent P.S...

...Others, less ambivalent than Berrigan, have parted company with former political allies over the abortion issue...

...PRO-LIFERS agonize over the many lives lost through abortion...

...Finally, there is the language...

...detectable brain waves by six to seven weeks...

...Even when the fetus is only 10 weeks old, suction abortion (the most prevalent method) results in visible parts of a little body, torn up by the power of the machine...

...Then comes a crucial distinction: "But once a woman has conceived, she can no longer choose whether or not to become a mother...

...To the police who arrested her at the clinic sit-in, she said, "It has gotten to the point where people have to put their bodies on the line and really suffer over this, because things are not going to change otherwise...

...To pro-lifers on the left, all of this brings back memories of Vietnam, the broken bodies shipped home from there, and the smaller bodies left behind for burial in the villages...

...The liberal and radical pro-lifers base one of their strongest arguments against abortion on the principle of equality...

...This year, as last year, the interns lobbied for the Hyde Amendment to bar public subsidies for abortion...

...Everyone was polite...

...Most see the Human Life Amendment as the best hope, though not all favor criminalization of abortion...

...Others, aware of the strong economic pressures on pregnant women who are poor, now view welfare issues from a fresh perspective...

...Occasionally they are embarrassed by statements of their right-wing friends in the pro-life movement...

...we're now past that awkward embryo stage and we're now a fat li'l fetus...

...PRO-LIFERS, whether left or right in their politics, generally begin their case with statements on biology...

...Some spend much time in standing outside abortion clinics, quietly trying to persuade women who are about to have abortions to change their minds...

...According to Loesch, " The woman's rights are then limited, as every right is limited, by the existence of another human being who also has rights...

...Sykes cited several areas of disagreement and disillusionment, then added: "It is on the abortion issue that the moral bankruptcy of contemporary liberalism is most clearly exposed...

...He made it clear that he opposed efforts to make abortion illegal, yet also said,' 'I am still at sea about this...

...The exceptions include several congressional veterans who were strong opponents of the Vietnam war (Edward Boland of Massachusetts, Lucien Nedzi of Michigan, Romano Mazzoli of Kentucky) and a number of the members first elected in 1974 or 1976 (Mary Rose Oakar of MARY MEEHAN is a Washington-based writer whose work has appeared in Inquiry, The Nation, The Washington Post and other journals...

...It is a deeper and more destructive assault than rape...

...Robert Dorman of California can say that the targeting of civilian populations by nuclear war strategists is immoral (as he did at the last National Right to Life convention), pro-lifers on the left hope that liberals like Edward Kennedy and Jerry Brown and Birch Bayh can take another look at abortion...

...or to use natural birth control or contraceptive drugs and gadgets if she has chosen not to become a mother...

...Some who still consider themselves liberals are troubled by evidence that many white people support Medicaid funding for abortion because they want to keep down welfare costs—and the black population...

...Both were once alive...

...I could not deny in one situation what I affirm in another...

...Anyone who discusses abortion with many people runs across open bigotry sooner or later...

...A group called Feminists for Life has grown to include about 1,000 women around the country...

...Commonweal: 14 Doctors who do saline abortions, like pilots who bombed Vietnam from high altitudes, are fortunate in that they seldom see the victims of their work...

...So are Dick Gregory and Jesse Jackson...

...They note that scientists and doctors say that life begins at conception...

...Senator Hatfield says that "belief in life's fundamental right to be has inevitable corporate consequences...

...Rather like bounty hunting...

...She notes that, before abortion-on-demand, the father of a child born out of wedlock was expected to be accountable and to provide support...

...But it can and should deal with scientific facts about the beginning of human life...

...is a network of activists who are opposed to nuclear weapons and nuclear power as well as to abortion...

...Ohio, Philip Sharp of Indiana, Berkley Bedell of Iowa and Bruce Vento of Minnesota...

...And Jesse Jackson says that the idea that life is private and that one may do with it as one wishes '' was the premise of slavery You could not protest the existence or treatment of slaves on the plantation because that was private and therefore outside of your right to be concerned...

...Juli Loesch, a pacifist and pro-life feminist, speaks of women in the peace movement: It would never occur to us to say, "For private moral reasons I don't personally condone nuclear arms, but I really can't impose my feelings on my fellow citizens who don't hold the same religious beliefs—and certainly each nation has the right to choose to incinerate its enemies if it wishes...

...Miller thinks that about three hundred people around the country are directly involved in sit-ins—that is, entering clinics and exposing themselves to arrest...

...and if the man actually goes to the clinic with the woman—if he holds her hand— 18 January 1980: 15 why, he's a prince...

...Commonweal: 16...

...Though some are radical activists, she believes that the politics of most members could be described as "moderate, leaning liberal...

...They think that euphemisms are used because the reality is too brutal...

...Many are married women with children...

...Certainly he is not imagining racism on this issue...

...The dilation and curettage (D & C) method is often used when the fetus is older...

...every summer...

...A new group called Prolifers for Survival (P.S...

...Before his retirement from the Senate, he cast one of his last votes against a Labor-HEW appropriations bill because it contained Medicaid funding for abortions...

...all organs and limbs formed by eight weeks...

...One or two signed the petition...

...Abortion clinics have names like "Women's Reproduction Health Center'' and' 'Preterm'' and' 'Birth Control Institute.'' Pro-life people who were active in the antiwar movement have been through all of this before...

...There is a feeling that penalties should be assessed against the doctors who perform abortions, rather than the women who undergo them...

...area, adds the perspective of the civil rights movement...

...Last year Berrigan admitted to an interviewer for the radical Seven Days magazine, "It was painful and difficult but I finally had to face the abortion issue...

...Some peace activists, like Daniel Berrigan, have faced the abortion issue reluctantly...

...I think it probably contributes to their misery...

...Another group with a progressive orientation is the National Youth Pro-Life Coalition...

...They remember "interdiction" (bombing), "pacification" (military occupation) and "selective ordnance" (napalm...

...the woman goes into labor within two days and delivers a still-born infant (often badly burned) or one who dies shortly after birth...

...And if the woman, for some reason, ends up having the baby after all, the man may feel perfectly justified in saying,' 'Hell, I did my duty...

...The doctor injects the womb with salt solution...

...Meanwhile, they go their way—leafleting, picketing, sitting in, writing, debating, counseling, pleading...

...Integrity compels me to protect life that is endangered...

...The military-industrial complex is paralleled by a sort of abortion complex...

...Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta are against abortion...

...Last year I helped petition in Maryland to put a liberal, pro-life candidate on the ballot for the state legislature...

...spontaneous movement by six weeks...

...Apparently she didn't mind having her tax money used to abort them...

...Some were involved in civil disobedience during the civil rights or Vietnam protests...

...making faces by 10 weeks...

...They also think that easy acceptance of abortion deadens the sensitivity of good people to suffering and death...

...she reasons that most of them are doing it for money and that wiping out their profits would remove their incentive...

...Don't expect me to help support it.'' Jo McGowan, another feminist/pacifist, says that as long as "women continue to accept the myth that pregnancy, birth or abortion, and the child-rearing responsibilities are their special province, the patriarchy has us exactly where it wants us...

...Pro-lifers realize that a long educational and political effort is needed to ensure passage of a constitutional amendment...

...Because pro-lifers believe there are decisive arguments against abortion on secular grounds, they are not worried by the pro-choice battle cry, "Don't impose your-morality on me...

...I am pleading for more thoughtfulness...

...She writes that everyone "certainly has the right to choose what happens to his or her own body and life" and says that this should include the legal right to smoke tobacco or marijuana, and also the right' 'to be free of coercion from cigarette smokers, health promoters, tattoo artists, and murder-suicide cultists (including the U.S...

...It included a cartoon of a fetus in the womb, making a peace sign with one hand and holding a "No Nukes" picket sign in the other...

...I know firsthand the effects of legal non-protection under the Constitution, and, from my point of view, the basic value upon which just law must rest is not 'choice,' but equality...

...He notes that, in opposing American intervention in Vietnam, "I did not merely believe it would be wrong for me, as an individual, to fight there...

...circular declared: ' 'With contacts in 20 states and 3 countries...

...I am white, too...

...Loesch adds, "More to the point, each woman has the right to be celibate...

...Some conservatives are questioning their previous support of capital punishment...

...They also worked on aid to the handicapped, the problems of minorities in the U.S., and the plight of the boat people in Southeast Asia...

...She views abortion as ' 'merely another way in which women are manipulated and degraded for male convenience and male profit...

...Abortion is, quite literally, a bloody business...

...Hughes, one of the most libqral Democrats in the Senate, was a leading opponent of the Vietnam war...

...They point to the rapid development of the embryo and fetus: regular heart beat between four and five weeks of age...

...Moore recalls her life in Florida during the segregation era, "when restrooms, public facilities, private establishments, housing—virtually everything—could be selectively and systematically denied to an entire segment of humanity...

...they leaflet or picket outside the clinics or staff pregnancy aid centers which help women who decide against abortion...

...Often, however, they afe pleased by signs that the "reverence for life" philosophy encourages conservatives to rethink issues other than abortion...

...This becomes blatantly obvious in the private abortion industries of both Britain and America, and the support given to the pro-abortion lobby by such exploitative corporations as the Playboy empire...

...Referral agencies make up to $40 per abortion simply by directing a woman to a clinic...

...or to be gay...

...I offered to abort it...

...They are united on one principle: "We reject the violence which .is the world's way...

...he is still in the Senate and still votes against abortion whenever the issue comes up...

...First, there is the physical reality...

...Many black leaders are well aware of this...

...With an estimated 5,000 young people as members, the NYPLC concentrates on educational and lobbying efforts...

...Other Senate liberals who vote with him include Joseph Biden of Delaware, Thomas Eagleton of Missouri, and William Proxmire of Wisconsin...

...And if a conservative like Rep...

...and die rhetoric of Gloria Steinem cannot make up for one any more than the rhetoric of Lyndon Johnson could make up for the other...

...Says Dick Gregory,' 'It's good business to make abortions legal...

...She declares, "As a civil-libertarian and a feminist, I support sexual and reproductive freedom...

...Some doctors make small fortunes each year from abortions, including Medicaid abortions...

...And how, in view of its growth and movements, can one say it is not alive...

...military...

...In either case, a nurse, rather than the doctor, usually sees the baby...

...and I went on my way...

...The head of the household invited me in and let me approach each person with the petition...

...They're making a hustle out of it...

...Two or three times that number are in supportive roles...

...Magda Denes, author of In Necessity and Sorrow: Life and Death in an Abortion Hospital (New York, 1976), describes a D & C abortion in more detail than most people want to know...

...He said that liberals' arguments in support of abortion ' 'could, without much refinement, be used to justify the legalization of infanticide...

...She adds that' 'I cannot tolerate the destruction of life in a society where I find myself among the expendable.'' A veteran of the civil rights, peace, and farm workers' causes, Moore believes that the "woman's right to control her own body" theme is a right-wing argument which puts property rights above the right to life...

...But as I went down the stairs, an argument exploded behind me...

...How, they ask, can one say that the fetus is not human...

...He wonders about long-term effects:'' What kind of a person and what kind of a society will we have twenty years hence if life can be taken so casually...

...Her offspring, a separate and genetically unique human individual, is already in existence, and is growing and developing rapidly...

...I don't think aborting their babies makes them any happier...

...Writer and activist Jay Sykes, who led Eugene McCarthy's 1968 antiwar campaign in Wisconsin and later served as head of the state's ACLU, wrote a "Farewell to Liberalism" several years ago...

...Many people who were active in the antiwar effort see connections between Vietnam and abortion...

...Another co-sponsor of the right-to-life amendment was Senator Mark Hatfield of Oregon, a liberal Republican and early opponent of the Vietnam war...

...Many abortion supporters say "termination of pregnancy" or "interruption of pregnancy" instead of "abortion...

...he has called it "a death sentence upon us...

...But now, she says: the responsible thing is to put up the cash for an abortion ("No hard feelings, OK...

...The fetus is called "products of conception" or "contents of the uterus...

...Doctors and clinics are reaping millions off of abortions...

...Even when the fetus is known to be either female or male, he or she is called "it...

...Quite a different view was presented by another middleclass white woman, Ellen McCormack, when she ran for president on a pro-life platform in 1976...

...And a growing number of feminists...

...and many are pacifists...

...Jesse Jackson asks, "What happens to the mind of a person, and the moral fabric of a nation, that accepts the aborting of the life of a baby without a pang of conscience...

...So are Daniel Berrigan and Richard Neuhaus...

...CHALLENGING THE STEREOTYPE The other right-to-lifers MARY MEEHAN ONE OF the best-kept secrets of our time is that the pro-life movement includes in its ranks and among its sympathizers a fair number of liberals and radicals, includings some of the most prominent...

...Both sides must talk to each other...

...They do not, however, share the belief of pro-choicers that a Human Life "Amendment would go the way of the Prohibition Amendment—largely unenforced and eventually repealed...

...They view as irrelevant the argument that abortion should be allowed because some theologians . think that the fetus has a soul only at viability or only at birth...

...She says that the group's membership includes single women, married women, women with children and those without, women who have had abortions, Christians, Jews, and atheists...

...Dick Gregory, for example, views abortion as a form of genocide...

...Once the legal personhood of the unborn is re-established, they believe, it will be sustained...

...Soon after the 1973 Supreme Court decisions legalizing abortion, then-Senator Harold Hughes of Iowa co-sponsored a constitutional amendment to protect the unborn...

...Jeanne Miller, a leader of the clinic counseling and sit-in movement, estimates that the typical sit-inner is between 25 and 31 years of age...