Scott Tibbs
Published by the Indiana Daily Student, 02-04-2003
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Attention focused on abortion's gruesome reality
To the Editor:Lindsay Prater and Natasha Ruser made decent arguments for "reproductive choice" in their letters of January 21st and 28th, but the picture the Indiana Daily Student published in its Region section on January 23rd refocuses this reader's attention on what we are really dealing with when we think and read about abortion. That picture was of an IU student and a Bloomington resident holding signs in sub-freezing temperatures detailing the gruesome results of Roe v Wade's 30th anniversary. We are dealing with a procedure that violently ends a human life. Those who missed that day's IDS can view the signs for themselves at www.cbrinfo.org (Warning: This Web site contains graphic images.)
We celebrated Martin Luther King's birthday two days before we observed the 30th anniversary of a decision that legally sanctioned 42 million deaths at places like Planned Parenthood. While King's dream of ending oppression of racial minorities has made significant progress in his life and after his death, the Supreme Court began a new, much more horrible era of oppression in 1973 against another group of human beings: unborn children.
How can one look at the pictures that were displayed on January 22nd and not realize that this isn't an issue of one's control over one's own body, but an issue of the violent termination of a human life?
Many people will read this letter and think, "Of course he's anti-abortion. He's male and won't ever be in that situation." But why would these words have more weight if a woman had written them? Are the exact same statements somehow more valid when written or spoken by a woman? And isn't that just a smokescreen to hide the fact that babies are really being killed every Thursday at Planned Parenthood, only a few blocks away from the Sample Gates?