Monday April 27, 1981
Abortion foes' Madison Convention... A grim future ahead?
By: Cathy Cecil
Making use of their rediscovered power in allies in government, anti-choice advocates are rallying around the proposed Human Life Amendment, which would outlaw all abortions and state that human life begins at conception.
A subtitle for this weekend's [Wisconsin Citizens Concerned for Life] convention reads ""Abortion, Infanticide, Euthanasia—The Need For a Human Life Amendment."" But despite the seeming concern for human issues other than abortion, the WCCL members are clearly invested only in preventing women from having legal abortions, and to ""bring America back to its common sense and undo the evil brought upon it from social elitists whose values we abhor and reject,"" according to U.S. Rep. Charles Dougherty, D-Penn., who addressed the convention Friday night.
One of the surprises of the debate over the wording of the Human Life Bill and amendment is that no one wants to make exceptions and allow abortions for victims of rape or incest, or women whose lives would be endangered by childbearing.
Another target of the wrath of anti-choice leaders is Planned Parenthood, which offers birth control counseling, abortion referrals, and, in a small number of Planned Parenthood clinics, abortions.
Planned Parenthood literature attempts to deal with basic questions about birth control and sexuality in a factual, straightforward manner. Many pamphlets answer questions about homosexuality, masturbation, and oral-genital sex.
With her voice shaking with anger, [the Rev. Olga] Fairfax pointed to a passage in a book ""Girls and Sex,"" written by Wardell B. Pomeron, of Kinsey Report note, and recommended by Planned Parenthood. The passage noted that all mammals engage in petting, sex and masturbation. That passage does nothing but promote these activities in young people, Fairfax charged.
Fairfax also noted with concern that the book stated sex is a normal expression of love.
After complaining righteously that the Supreme Court justices who legalized abortion had no idea of the pain they had caused potential fathers and grandmother who were deprived of children and grandchildren because of abortion, Fairfax wished there was ""retroactive abortion for senile Supreme Court justices.""
Planned Parenthood also came under attack in a workshop entitled ""Planned Parenthood—The Abortion Connection,"" which featured Michael Schwartz, the public relations director of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights. Planned Parenthood is nothing but ""one of the greatest artists at creating euphemism and using words to mean the direct opposite,"" Schwartz charged.
""[Planned Parenthood] creates a need for its services,"" Schwartz charged, ""by coercing teenagers into having sex, so they need contraceptives provided by Planned Parenthood, and eventually an abortion, again from Planned Parenthood.""
Convention leaders were divided on how to provide family planning without Planned Parenthood. Some speakers urged development of alternative family planning programs for couples and families, more in conjunction with childbirth facilities.
But Dougherty asserted that, ""sex education has been blown out of proportion"" and urged that teaching values in church and in families would be more useful for young people.
There is no need for birth control counseling or extensive sex education in the schools, he said.
""In 1956 I had a good course in biology,"" noting that such a course, taught by biologists—not sociologists of anthropologists—is sufficient education.
Dougherty, too, criticized Planned Parenthood, because it has ""become a vehicle to advance abortion,"" and because it ""espouses that homosexuality is a legitimate value.""
