From:    Donna.
To:      Kathleen Rogers
Subject: Re: Rescue Movement


> I appreciated your comments regarding the self-defense reasons why a woman
> might choose abortion.  I don't quite get your point, though. I think of
> the term self-defense in terms of defending one's life, not ones economic
> welfare, self-esteem.  I think most people think of being able to injure
> another person only to defend their own life or physical well-being.

Sometimes, "economic welfare" and/or "self-esteem" mean the difference
between life and death.  After all, a lack of economic welfare tends to
lead one towards such nasty things as starving to death.....

> Regardless, my original point was that a moral person does not kill
> another person or allow others to do so.  The basic insoluble problem

Excuse me, Kathleen, but this is not what your original point was.  I could
agree with your original point, but I cannot agree with this.  What you
started before was, "A moral person will not kill another human being
except in self-defense" and now you say "A moral person will not kill
another human being".

Though I have never had an abortion, I have been in the position of making
the decision.  I know what it is to have every "friend" I thought I had run
out on me, because they knew what was best for me and my life and couldn't
stand my not taking their advice.  I know what it is to have my entire
livelihood -- my home, my life -- in jeopardy because I worked for a man
who didn't believe women should be pregnant while under his employ.  I know
what it's like to have the man I thought loved me turn away, because I
didn't bend to his will and do as he wanted me to do.

I know what it's like to stop being a person, just because I was pregnant
-- because everyone around me stopped seeing ME for nine months, they could
see only "the baby".  My body they were playing guessing games with,
Kathleen.  My life they were psychoanalyzing.  And not one of them had the
foggiest notion of what my life was really all about.

I know what it is to be completely alone.  And Kathleen, I wouldn't wish
that fate on ANYbody.  I'm too humane, too caring for that.  I cannot say
to my fellow woman, "You must risk this just to save a life".  I cannot say
to any human being, "You are less important than an embryo which may or may
not survive".  I cannot say to another human being, "You must forever pay,
in the way that *I* think you *should* pay, for making a mistake."  I
cannot say to a woman, "You're taking the easy way out, and life's not like
that" -- because I know that it's not *my* place to judge what's the "easy
way" for someone else's life.  Especially when I know of no woman who's
ever looked forward to an abortion with glee, but many who have faced an
abortion with dread and sorrow, with a reluctance acceptance that "This is
the only way *I* can survive".

And that's being the most moral, kind, loving person I can be.

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