a^ X^y^€h^^i.iAjj^a(^,.^^£X:^JzAA^^y^J^^ P(A/^ ^4^fxjU)C^. ^.^^ \MM.,4^H^ M^^-^^-O^ A^^^(^(Le^ <^i^ aJ-^ttoan^ _^ X^JL. J!uf2/t4M£^ (^€^i'*^^ Zd^jCytU^ y^i?^ /cAt- Ay'^i^i'fi^ CM'^yt'M^^ . Z ABORTION FOR THE ASKING Seated in a semicircle around Holly sibility that anti-abortion forces will win Shaw, R.N., are seven women, each a constitutional amendment overturn certifiably no more than 12 weeks preg ing the decision, legal abortion will be nant. It is Friday night, the busiest an established fact of American life. night of the week at Bill Baird's Parents That makes it worth taking a look at Aid Society, a small nonprofit abortion the place where abortion has worked clinic on Long Island run by one of the under the most liberal conditions for country's most zealous crusaders for the longest time. For the past few weeks abortion reform. In a few hours the I have been visiting abortion clinics in women assembled here will no longer New York and the people who keep be pregnant, and Mrs. Shaw is explain them busy—patients, doctors, counsel ing in great detail how this will hap ors. Everything that I have seen and pen. The Baird clinic does its counseling heard suggests that while the law can in small groups, instead of individually, offer safe and humane surroundings for in the interests of tension-easing and a woman who wants an abortion, no productive experience-sharing, but there one can do much about making it psy are no group dynamics at work this chologically easy. Like Doris at the night. The seven women stare despond Parents Aid Society, almost every Vvom- ently at the transparent model of a fe an comes to the experience with a de male pelvis that Mrs. Shaw uses to gree of anxiety. It is not a happy time. explain the procedure. She tells them On the other hand, contrary to the folk that the kind of abortion they are about BY HELEN DUDAR lore of abortion as lifelong trauma, it is to have is swift, simple, safe, and can So there it is: for the past 33 months, not necessarily a profundly scarring one be pain free. Not one of her listeners either. believes it. She tells them she had one any woman who wanted an abortion patient who read a magazine through could have one in New York State for Let's look at the realities. For a starter, her abortion. Two of the women look the asking—and the paying—before the as one abortion worker put it, "It's a almost catatonic with fear. She tells seventh month of her pregnancy. Since pregnancy, not an infected molar." To them, "Some people have even said it July 1, 1970, under the benediction of many women, conception is a magical tickles." No trace of a smile pursues one of the most liberal laws in the event, good magic when a baby is the notion. Afterwards, Mrs. Shaw goes country. New York State has become wanted, bad magic when it's unwel on, they might feel "a little yucky," no the most popular place in the hemi come; in either event, it's hard to be more than that. Nothing, nothing this sphere to have an abortion perfoiTned; casual about the fertilization of a hu friendly, compassionate young woman New York City alone has counted more man ovum. offers dispels the haggard apprehension than a half-million voluntarily termi Then, there is the specter of the clinging damply to the walls of the lit nated pregnancies. botched abortion; everyone has surely tle room. Finally, she turns to a large, Now the U.S. Supreme Court has ex read of one, seen a movie about one, pale young woman who is rather con tended the right nationally in a deci had a friend or relative victimized by spicuously struggling with nausea and sion that surprised and pleased the ad one, and the imagery is forever fixed: says gently, "Doris, you look really vocates of legalized abortion as much the newspapers on the kitchen floor, grim." Doris, expelling a mournful sigh, as it outraged its foes. When the Court's the dingy overhead light, the unclean slides even lower into the chair and decision, which was handed down on instruments, the inept or sadistic doc says, "It sounds so awful—isn't there January 22, becomes a reality in this tor, the death by hemorrhage or blood some way they can put you out without covmtiy, the expert guessers are guess poisoning. In this part of the U.S., telling you about it?" ing that 1,600,000 legal abortions will where abortion has become almost be performed every year (see box, page routine and almost respectable, where 34). Just the other day, abortion was clinics flourish all over the state, Helen Dudar is a reporter for the New an unmentionable and, under the laws where Planned Parenthood of New York Post and has written for a num of most states, a criminal act. Now, in York will even charge it to your Bank- ber of national magazines. no time at all, barring the remote pos Americard, the question many women 30 PRODUCED 2005 BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED S^aX^XIJUC^(juCuX^KOj. /yt^/t^AyK/ aX':;c^ijt^ \ CJUH^(L^ iMHy-Hdl'tM^ x^ J~ JU/OU^J^ ^^C&TtX'ySH^-Ur^ J'1^^4<^ yU/ W£^5^ 6^t{ii<^ do<^i^ /iC^Cl. /l/^^^ 31 PRODUCED 2005 BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED llJdt^ j^ /yyua^ cx^ /^^UtJiu^^^^^^ a^ —Puerto Ricans, Mexicans, South Amer the techniques well, suction-aspiration icans, it doesn't matter where they come abortion is simple but, says Joan Mo- from—they are clearly the products of Tigue, a counselor, "doctors don't seem the most sexually repressive of Western to want to learn from each other." She, cultures. Petra Diaz, a Spanish-speaking among others, told me that some phy counselor at the 22nd Street Center, a sicians consistently cause more pain big Planned Parenthood operation in than others because they "can't be downtown Manhattan, has to begin re bothered" doing the reading homework assuring them from the moment she involved in learning to administer the starts making intendew notes. local anesthesia effectively. Miss Mc- "So many of them come without hav Tigue, who works in a big city clinic, ing told husbands, friends, families. also worries about another aspect most They see me writing, and they become people don't talk much about or pos frantic. Why am I writing things sibly even think much about; the best down? Who will see their records? Is counselor in the world can be eroded it secret? The Spanish-speaking women by the nature of the work, and this, claim to feel more pain, and they too, affects the patient. "It's exhaust probably do, but I feel it is due more ing, draining. We need space, time to to emotional reasons than physical ones. deal with what it means to be dropping Sometimes they are able to relax on five fetuses a day into formaldehyde the table; even so, they may have jfirs. Nobody wants to confront that. heavy cramping. I had one patient— For the woman having the abortion it's she had had two illegal abortions, a lifesaving or surely a life-enhancing which were very bad. Before the doc event. But for the counselor it gets to tor even touched her, she was sitting at a clinic with the blessing of her be life-denying, somehow. The final on the table saying, 'It hurts.' After priest. There was one such woman a effect is you're drained of the creative wards, when we talked in the recovery while ago at Parkmed, a big place in a energy you need to keep going. The room, she said she had suffered more Park Avenue skyscraper, which is the counseling gets more and more super fear and guilt this time than before. only free-standing clinic in the city that ficial. It gets to be like a factory." She said to me, 'For three times God offers general anesthesia. She was in Patients who would rather be un has given me three pregnancies, and I her late thirties, the mother of three conscious and unhurt can go to a could not keep them. I wonder if He children, one of them brain-damaged, hospital for general anesthesia or to an will punish me when I really want a and she had some serious medical independent, free-standing clinic that child.'" problems that made another pregnancy offers oblivion, usually at a slightly Almost everybody worries about the treacherous. She was there with her higher price than a local anesthetic. The effect of the abortion on future fer husband and, she said, with the full time spent under general anesthesia is tility. "Will I be sterile?" they want to approval, indeed the urging, of her brief and doesn't require an overnight know. The answer usually given is priest. He had given her a small bottle stay. Ardis Danon, assistant administra that it is the remotest of possibihties. of holy water, priestly insurance in case tor at Parkmed, says the clinic's pa What appears to be common, however, the fetus had a soul. The ritual didn't tients include mothers who are pro is for young women who have had require a Catholic, anybody could do ponents of, and have given birth to, abortions to experience difficulty con it, and since the patient would be un children by the Lamaze method. They ceiving when they set out to start a conscious when the fetus emerged, she believe in natural, wide-awake child family; the guess is that the problem is wondered if her counselor would mind birth but prefer to sleep through an often emotional, the price exacted by conducting the little ceremony. And so, abortion. the tensions and guilts that still sur after the suction aspirator had done 7 must say this is the most humane round the business of terminating an its work, a motherly, middle-aged Jew thing that's happening in New York. unwanted pregnancy. ish social worker named Lillian Sha I had an illegal abortion five years ago Interestingly, for all of the Catholic piro chanted the appropriate phrases performed by this supposedly high- Church's ceaseless attack against abor and, as she puts it, "blessed the tis class doctor on Park Avenue. I had a tion reform, the services are used as sue." Mrs. Shapiro recollects that her local, but it was an unhappy experi much by Catholic women as any other patient was fine afterwards. "She ence—it seemed to me I was being segment of the population. The best seemed to have no feelings of guilt or treated like a stack of flesh gone demonstration of this is in the case remorse." wrong. He wasn't absolutely hostile, v/here an abortion center is serving an There are women, on the other hand, because there was this $1,000 fee hang exclusively local population. At a big who set out to pay their dues, almost ing between us, but the attitude was hospital in Syracuse, New York, for willfully embracing the prospect of one of, 'Okay, you danced; now you example, 44 per cent of the women pain. "Well, it might as well hurt" is pay the piper.' He was brusque and in who got abortions were Catholic, an the way one woman put it as she credibly impersonal. I hated him for a accurate reflection of the religious com walked into the procedure room. "May long time. . . . I guess I got pregnant position of the city and surrounding be that will teach me a lesson." because I thought I would like another counties. Then again, it is possible to arrive child. It was irresponsible of me, I In this era of radicalized and po for an abortion in a relaxed, radiant know. I'm divorced, my kids are 13 liticized clergy, it is no longer even state and still encounter pain. In the and 12. But the pressures of the music rurprising when a woman shows up hands of a practitioner who has learned business are heavy, and I suppose hav- PRODUCED 2005 BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED c^O^^ ^CA'^'^tU^^^J^^-^ ^^i^-ld^ ...'^^^fi^^EiZ^^ Mf^ffU. ing a child was a way out. . . . This "atonement pregnancy"; an immediate rate, is the only place where hospitals place, there's nothing secretive, nothing and direct way of penalizing oneself have bed space. So a woman laboring sordid. I mean, I recommend it. I for the "transgression" of abortion. It to deliver a fairly well-formed fetus woke up here this afternoon thinking, may involve a desperate, racking worry (and on rare occasions a living, prema 'Oh, I wasn't punished this time for about whether the abortion has pro ture infant) is likely to be within hear being sexy.' duced sterility; for many women, the. ing distance of the wails of the new That was Beverly, the folksinger, a ability to conceive is the ultimate' con born. There are nurses who will not wonderful-looking woman with a smile firmation of femininity. Finally, here work on saline cases and some pro-abor like a day in May and electric masses and there are women who use abortion tion doctors who find the procedure so of black Brillo hair. We met in the routinely to control their reproductive unappealing that they refer patients to recovery lounge of Parkmed, where I systems. This is often the case among less squeamish colleagues. had just taken a sampling among six recent immigrants from Eastern Euro The early days of saline service in other abortees and five times heard the pean countries, where abortion has New York hospitals were grim. "In phrase one always hears in that setting: been freely available for years. At a city itially," a gynecologist told me, "we "I feel so relieved." I have been told hospital clinic in Queens County a while had nurses who were ostensibly pro- that afterwards some women cry a little, back a recently arrived 32-year-old Yu abortion but whose attitude proved to out of transient sadness or guilt or even goslavian woman, the mother of two be so punitive and antisexual that the relief, but I never saw tears in any of children, came in for an abortion and patients suffered. You'd write an order the places I visited. The sixth patient in could not understand why she provoked for Demerol to be given when needed that circle of women swallowing cookies such astonishment when she reported and find out later that it was not given was mostly very, very angry. she had already had 17. until the patient was out of control or She was Nancy, a 23-year-old sec Teen-agers present a special set of not given often enough. Those women retary from Nova Scotia, who had been problems. "Sometimes they just dump were eventually weeded out of the deflowered and impregnated by her so many fantasies on the idea of having program, but we still find some covert fiance. He would have married her, a child," says Margie Weiss, another anti-abortion attitudes, nurses who may but, having experienced sex and con Planned Parenthood counselor. "You be very supportive through a first abor ception, she lost interest in him. "I feel know, it's this mysterious, fabulous tion, but hostile when they learn this is sick about the whole thing," she said thing of becoming an adult, a woman. the second time around." vehemently. "No, not about having the It's an accomplishment." I said to Richard, "I'm getting an abortion—I wanted to do it—but never Young teen-agers, 17 or under, rep abortion. I hope you approve, but I'm. again will I get myself into this posi resented nearly 20 per cent of the getting it whether you approve or not!' tion where I have to have an abortion." abortions performed during the first I felt very strongly it would be the "Never again." It is the clarion cry two years of abortion reform in New end of me to have this third child. It of most of the unwed, freshly non York. The clinics are by now accus would mean giving up any pretensions pregnant, a vow of eternal celibacy tomed to mothers arriving to register I have to a career; it toould make me heard a thousand times a day in re daughters for abortion and announcing into a housewife, and I knew I didn't covery rooms across the state. "I ain't firmly, "My daughter was raped." The want that. I was fearful, if I had it, gonna have sex anymore," Petra Diaz counselor usually discovers when alone I'd end tip as a battering mother. I quotes a patient as saying. "You don't with the child that the rapist was a boy was afraid I would hurt the child. I gonna see me anymore." Not only is she had been sleeping with for eight was held up for two weeks by a fam the pledge flagrantly unrealistic, but months. What an odd set of values it ily problem. I was really scared I it creates a problem for clinic workers is that makes a woman take a barnacle- wouldn't be able to go through with it who try to persuade their clients that hold on the belief that it is better for if I waited much longer. What if I they would rather not have the repeat her child to have been violated than to felt life? What if I had more symptoms business. Most clinics have a policy of have pleasured herself with s-x. than just breast swelling? Then I offering birth control information; a Because youngsters often wait too would certainly feel, God, it could be few are more forceful than that. "We long to tell their families about a preg murder. I didn't tell anyone else, not don't want to see you back here again, nancy, they must wait even longer to my parents, not my friends. I got a unless yovi want to drop by for a visit terminate it, and it must be done in a certified check from the bank and left or an examination," Holly Shaw said hospital. For after three months, the Richard home with the children and mildly to her seven patients at Baird's fetus is too large for abortion by went uptown. I sat there waiting my that Friday night; then she proceeded vacuum-aspiration and the procedure turn at the clinic, wondering if I were to explain the two most widely used requires a saline injection. To start the less of a person for doing this. You methods, the Pill and the intrauterine abortion, a salt solution is injected just don't know, even with the legality, device, and to ask each woman to through the abdomen into the amniotic whether you're doing the right thing choose then and there. sac; two davs later uterine contractions because, by all of our moral and re From time to time a woman will result, and, after a while, the fetus is ligious standards, it's not. The abor return within a few weeks, pregnant expelled. Nobody really knows whether tion itself was easy. The doctor told again. The city's repeat rate is 1.9 per this kind of abortion is worse emotion me to relax, and, of course, I relaxed. cent, and it is twice as high for resi ally than suction-aspiration, but it is The suctioning felt very much like a dents as for nonresidents. A new un surely more disagreeable, not to men birth pain, like a baby coming out. wanted pregnancy may be an authentic tion more expensive. FvirtheiTnore, pa There is this feeling. Gee, I've gone accident; the IUD is far from foolproof. tients undergoing saline-injection abor through this before. I do not remember It may be what someone in the medical tions are usually placed on the mater any great guilt feelings afterwards. literature once rather elegantly labeled nity floor, which, with a waning birth Those I had before. The feelings I had 33 PRODUCED 2005 BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED I y JM&K/^IK^ lA ^je^Aril^.flMyrU.dAj/y)i£.CL J- Mal^ AA/O'ti^ Xo y/i^l^v^ a^ C/^o^^! fl/fer were of utter elation. I had been know "anecdotally" of one woman who, the most before and after are women, brought back from the dead, as it were. early in the days of legal abortion, who are most conflicted about having We have just heard from Myra, an went home and took her life, leaving an abortion: the unmarried girl who is editor, a relatively liberated woman, a note that spoke of her guilt over ter doing it under pressure because her and an unswerving believer in the minating the pregnancy. The event is mother or boy friend want her to; the right to abortion. She does not re classified anecdotal because it is not woman with ingrained religious convic member telling a friend that she got part of the massive body of data col tions who really feels abortion is unac home that day, stepped througli the lected and processed by the city's Bu ceptable but cannot face a new child. door, and was momentarily flooded reau of Maternity Services and Family But there have been astonishingly with remorse. The thought that pulsed PlaTining, and nobody appears to have few reports of bad afteimaths. TTie through her head was, "My God, what inquired into it. "All we know is that Center for Reproductive and Sexual have I done?" Reminded of it the other the patient mav have been under psy Health (better known as Women's Ser day, she said, "Did I say that? I don't chiatric care, although that is imclear," vices), the oldest and largest of New remember. But if I did, I've blotted it said Dr. Jean Pakter, director of the York State's abortion clinics, allows, in out." And so, apparently, do many buieau. "But this is why we make a deed encourages, its out-of-state clients women. big point about counseling. There to call collect for advice on either Now, for years, one of the articles should be ver)' careful screening." physical or emotional problems, and it of faith in the medical profession has In general, the obvious supposition has a policy of paying for any abortion been that abortion is usually a pro is that a severely disturbed pregnant complications requiring further atten foundly tiaumatic event, producing woman is apt to be a severely dis tion. Explaining all this, Barbara Pyle, lifelong guilt and .shame and depres turbed abortee, but the odds are that its executive administrator, said, "We sion. It is a di.smal introduction to the she would be in a worse state bring pay $50,000 worth of hospital bills a workings of the scientific mind to ing forth a child she didn't want. year for complications, and that would ramble through the recent medical Clinic counselors find that right after certainly include emotional problems if literature on abortion, there to find abortion a small minority of women, any turned up. It seems impossible psychiatrists and gynecologists explor about 1.5 per cent in one upstate New that out of almost 70,000 cases there ing the subject anew, discovering that York study, are sad and say so or look has never been a case of acute depres they have all these years believed a it. 0\'er a period of weeks, some wom sion that turned up on our follow-up myth and asking, in the tortured jargon en may experience limited periods of sheets, but there hasn't." of the trade, the equivalent of "how mild depression. For a married woman Even so, it is also impossible to could we have been misled?" This who had enjoyed motherhood, the sight imagine that some women do not ar happened only a few years ago when, of a new baby may set it oflF. The rive home and feel, along with relief, prodded by the rising demands of the counselors find that those who suffer a sense of loss. It's gone. It happens, women's movement for abortion re according to Dr. Nathalie Shainness, form, doctors started looking back at a Manhattan psychiatrist who has been old works and discovered that the Arithmetic one of the major pro-abortion voices in standard textbook warnings of the the reform movement, but she thinks emotional hazards of abortion were a this feeling of loss may often be a myth, based on little more than general of Abortion "mask" for something else. For ex An estimated 1,250,000 abortions prejudice and a rare case or two. ample, a woman who has allowed her were performed last year in the self to become pregnant in hopes of Reviewing the literature in 1970, a United States—about half legal and cementing a relationship with the man Yale psychiatrist. Dr. Stephen Fleck, half illegal. Dr. Christopher Tietze, involved and then has had to abort is appears to have had the single dazzling an international expert on abortion, apt to be mourning not simply the un flash of insight into the psychology of who is an associate director of the born child but the failure to transform abortion. As he pointed out, there are Population Council, projects on the the relationship into marriage, say, or something like 4,000 documented post basis of New York City's experi a better marriage. partum psychoses a year in this country ence that in the wake of the Su —that is, cases of women not under preme Court's decision the number Dr. Shainness suspects that the further psychiatric care before pregnancy who of legal abortions will rise to along the pregnancy is, the greater the suffer such profound depressions after 1,600,000 a year, or roughly four possibility of post-abortion melancholy. childbirth that they had to be institu abortions for e\ery nine births. This "Body loss" as well as psychic loss has tionalized. It seems reasonable to sup would still be significantly lower to be considered. Momentous hormonal pose that, if abortion produced similar than the rate in Hungary, where changes take place during pregnancy. derangements, a few representative ex there are as many abortions annually "The longer this goes on, the more the amples would have turned up some as births. Still, readily available abor body is 'deprived' when the abortion where, sometime. But they haven't. tion throughout the U.S. could even takes place. Also, I believe there is Modern clinical studies of the emo tually lead to 300,000 to 400,000 a growing psychic adaptation to the tional impact of abortion are thin yet fewer births a vear, Dr. Tietz esti pregnancy in spite of the nonaccept- respectable. There have been a few mates, and population expert Dr. ance, which may also cause a sense done in England and Sweden—coun Charles Westoff of Princeton says of loss. Loss, not guilt." tries which have had liberal abortion that this drop-off, on top of our cur The most detailed post-abortion study policies for years (but not abortion- rent decline in birth rates, "would reported so far is the work of two child on-demand)—and these studies agree drive the national fertility rate sub psychiatrists at St. Luke's Hospital Cen that "serious" effects are rare. stantially below replacement level." ter in New York, and it has created In New York City, health authorities some distres,s in pro-abortion circles in 31 PRODUCED 2005 BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED The Supreme Court's Slow But Certain Impact on Abortion In January, the nation's highest court Washington declared that a married tion has been introduced that would severely restrained states from restrict woman living at home still must obtain bring state law into conformity with ing or prohibiting a woman's right to her husband's consent for abortion. And the Supreme Court decision. And a have an abortion. During the first 12 Virginia's legislature defiantly rejected number of actual, new abortion ser weeks of pregnancy, the Supreme Court a bill to bring that state's law into con vices have cropped up here and there declared, a woman has this right with formance with the Court's decree. because of the decision. out qualification. From the thirteenth Meantime, the Catholic Church's In Texas, whose anti-abortion law to the twenty-seventh week, states can hierarchy remains vehemently opposed was specifically voided by the Supreme impose conditions only to protect the to abortion, as evidenced by a recent, Court, a clinic has been set up by three woman's health. A state may prohibit unprecedented pastoral message from Dallas doctors. In Missouri, where state an abortion during the last ten weeks the National Conference of Catholic law imposed manslaughter penalties of a pregnancy, the Court said, but not Bishops. This formal proclamation calls for performing an abortion or for even even then if the woman's health is at for disobedience of "any civil law that referring a woman to an abortionist, a stake. may require abortion." "We reject the St. Louis group is planning to open an Prior to the decision, only a few opinion of the U.S. Supreme Court," abortion clinic by the end of this month. states came close to being this permis the church body said, "as erroneous, Detroit's first three abortion clinics are sive about abortions—Alaska, Califor unjust, and immoral." At a minimum, set to open this month, too. nia, Hawaii, New York, and the Dis the proclamation undoubtedly means The Abortion Counseling Service of trict of Columbia. Now, in theory, abor that Catholic hospitals, even those that Minnesota used to send about 25 wom tion on demand is legal everywhere in serve in a quasi-public status as a com en a week to San Francisco for abor the United States, as long as it falls munity's only medical facility, will con tions, but since the Court's ruling they within the Supreme Court's boundaries. tinue to refuse to perform abortions. have sent only four a week, women Conforming legislation and further de In light of lingering legal uncertain over 12 weeks pregnant whom Minne fining of the law through courtroom ties and unrelenting opposition, few sota abortion physicians feel they lack challenge still lie ahead, however, as areas where abortion has been illegal the experience to handle. Preterm, a part of the usual slow process of trans or severely restricted are nishing to Washington, D.C.-based abortion clin forming judicial edict into functioning provide abortion services. The general ic, has sensed enough of a demand to law. Meantime, deep moral and reli situation in such areas was described set up a formal training program for gious opposition to abortion continues for Tennessee in particular by the ex such doctors living in states where and is likely to make this legalization ecutive secretary of the Tennessee they can now begin to practice abor process even slower. Medical Association: "Everybody is in tion because of the Supreme Court's Indeed, in at least five states, legal limbo. Our attorney is studying the Su ruling. Perhaps the most direct and authorities have, at least rhetorically, preme Court decision to see what our concrete impact of the Court's decision challenged the Court's decision by af options are. I don't know of any phy has been felt by Berkeley Bio-Engineer firming the legality of existing anti- sician who will perform an abortion on ing, Inc., of Berkeley, California, whose abortion laws and regulations. Louisi re(|uest right now." sales levels have doubled since the de ana's attorney general, for instance, said Still, even in the short time since the cision. This fiiTn manufactures about a doctor's license might still be revoked Court decision was handed down, there 70 per cent of the vacuum aspirators in that state if he performed an abor have already been some discernible in the United States, the principal tion. Michigan's attorney general has movements in the direction of freer piece of equipment used for modern asserted that a doctor who performs abortion in many parts of the country. lawful abortion. The company is cur an abortion in Michigan "at this point In at least a dozen states, government rently unable to keep up with orders does so at his own peril." To the dis legal authorities have declared existing for its abortion device^—orders, the may of feminist fighters for abortion, anti-abortion laws to be no longer in company says, that are coming in from the attorney general of the state of effect. In at least nine states, legisla every region of the country. New York, where people worry about tion, while ignoring the other people They'll never be the same again." damage to the Cause. It was a pilot in her life who may make her miser If our system of providing abortion study by Drs. James H. Egan and Eu able later on, is doing only half the job on demand doesn't enlarge everywom- gene J. Mahon of 12 poor black and that needs to be done. an's perception of herself, the prayer Puerto Rican girls, aged 12 to 18 at In vivid opposition to the shadowy is that at the very least, it doesn't dis the time of their abortions. Inter side of the picture is a small body of tort or diminish it. These things, ob viewed several times in depth over pe feminist belief in abortion as a growth viously, are unmeasurable. But on paper riods averaging 11 months, they were experience—sometimes, anyway. Some and in daily experience. New York's found to be depressed, lonely, full of of the women who come for abortions record looks good; the rest of the coun-i, guilt. Those who continued to have sex have spent most of their adult years in try could do worse than adopt its ap had ceased to enjoy it. Almost all of passive and submissive housewifery; proach as a humane starting point for them had experienced cruel, guilt-pro occasionally the decision not to have delivering abortion to those who want voking confrontations with parents and this fourth or fifth or sixth child is the it. Monique Nadel told me of a 16- boy friends in which they were excori first important one they have made year-old girl whose counseling had been ated for having committed "murder." since the wedding day. "They come so successful that, relaxed and inter As the study makes clear, and as out of it feeling altered," says Monique ested, she sat up through the proce Egan emphasized again in an inter Nadel, a founder of and counselor at dure, watching. That, of course, is the view, he and his colleague believe that the Bronx Commvmity Abortion Center. ultimate exception. Pregnancy, as I "most young teen-agers who become "They've discovered a strength within noted early on, is not a hurting tooth, pregnant ought to have abortions." But themselves, they've found they can do and it's hard to visualize a time when the lesson is that merely counseling the something by themselves and for them a trip to the abortion clinic can ever be young teen-ager who wants an abor selves. It's a big learning experience. as routine as a visit to the dentist. D 35 PRODUCED 2005 BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED AAM^ftCmw( ft «l America will soon become the first The Fake Factor in out a generous application of fakery civilization to eliminate lying. The lie TV ratings fall, grants do not come is not vanishing because it is being American life, writes through, exams are flunked, candidates killed off, like some hapless species of lose, income-tax returns are penalized. wildlife. It is not disappearing because Arthur Herzog, has Skill at faking will pot automatically it was legislated out of existence, like guarantee success, but it will take one a noxious fume, or because it has atro caused "a cerebral fog to —even one deficient in other talents— phied from lack of use. Clearly, the lie a long way toward the pinnacle. Con cannot be regarded as a victim of settle upon our mental sider the following modest sampling higher morality but as a casualty of of the various kinds of fakery available progress. landscape and all but to every American as so many spikes For the liar the outright lie has al on the greasy pole. ways presented an enormous and cen obliterate its real features." tral peril—that of being exposed, with landscape and all but obliterate its the humiliation and even jail sentence real features. which may follow. So clumsy and even Perhaps the best indication of how hazardous a weapon cried out to be well fakery has succeeded in America A NYTHING replaced by something that would ac is that most people seem only dimly AUTHORITIES complish its objectives and be at the aware, if aware at all, of how much same time safe. The breakthrough has cant their minds are compelled to ab come, and, as a result, our society sorb. Fakery, in other words, has come will soon be as free of lies as a diet to seem a natural, quotidian part of cola is of calories. experience. Indeed, that was the ob The new device that is making the jective in the first place—to make the lie obsolete can be called the Fake unreal appear real, the bizarre seem Factor or, for those who require still ordinary, the non-thing or non-person more trenchant terminology, the B.S. look like a thing or person, the crazy Factor. A factor makes or does some sound sane, the irregular seem regular, thing. Introduced into communications the distortion appear as the normal of any kind, this factor causes a subtle way of making a case. skewering of sense, a distortion of logic, The Fake Factor, then, fills the without ever becoming totally untrue. messageways and stores of this country Unlike lies, which are occasional in to overflowing. It is brought to you in struments used for specific purposes, the ads and the news stories. It can be the Fake Factor, to succeed, must be seen in the design of many products ubiquitous—that is, it must set the and felt in the prices of those products. standard for what is, or isn't, an ac It is heard on talk shows as much as ceptable level of truth. This factor, during the commercial breaks. It re then, is responsible for a continual dif sounds in the oven that plays "Tender ference between word and reality. It ly" when the meat is ready, and over has brought about the lie which is the Super Bowl when jet fighters swoop not quite a lie and the truth which overhead as though the taxpayers had is not quite true. Increasingly, it de demanded this use of planes, pilots, termines how we talk to one another and fuel. It can be found in copious and the way we establish meaning. quantity at any stationery store—in, Conventional lies wear thin sooner for example, the daily reminders that or later, but the Fake Factor is im serve as daily excuses to forget. It is "When an 'Anything Authority' becomes mensely durable, being a dense weave displayed on such license plate mes successful, he joins the Permanent of logical errors and sophistries com sages as New Hampshire's LIVE FREE Rotating Panel Show on television." bined (or recycled) into spectacular OR DIE; in such film ratings as "For Ma new packages with the help of cur ture Audiences Only," meaning voyeurs; The thirst for answers in a difiicult rent prejudices and the modern reli in the inflated figures for church mem world has brought about the rise of gion of science. Besides, faking on such bership; in the appliance manual's line Anything (or Everything) Authorities. a scale is bound to cause a continual drawing of the neat coveralled service The Anything Authority is someone distraction of attention, which in turn man who comes when you call; in sex whose credentials in one field are taken protects the Fake Factor from too manuals that help no one; in war as valid for others—often many others mtich scrutiny. The overall result is so ranties that don't warrant; in insurance but almost always including politics. much cant and obfuscation as to cause policies that insure half of what you Examples are Dr. George Wald, the biol a cerebral fog to settle upon our mental expected; in the folderol of the futur ogist; Dr. Benjamin Spock, the pedia ists; in the splenetic posturings of trician; Jane Fonda, the actress; and "radicals"; in the prevarications of Arthur Herzog, a New York—based free Dr. Linus Pauling (who has said of Presidents. lance writer, is the author of the forth- President Nixon: "For 15 years I have 'coming The B. S. Factor (Simon ir One way to assess the ubiquity and studied insanity. I saw the eyes on tele Schuster), from which thii article has impact of the Fake Factor is to imagine vision, and there is madness, paranoia"), been excerpted. what happens in its absence—for with- the chemist turned psychologist. 36 Co,)j/nB(i(®i9r3 In/ Arthur Hcr:<,ii PRODUCED 2005 BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED
Abortion for the Asking
