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The Rice Thresher
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David Cerutti Special to the Thresher Washington, 2001: George W. Bush is elected to office on the theme of compassionate conservatism, pledging that he will sign into law a bill to ban "partial birth abortions" and, calmly yet emphatically, vowing to "change peoples' hearts" on the issue. He symbolically cuts $15 million in funding to international relief organizations that provide abortions and contraceptives as part of their efforts, a direct reversal of Clinton's policy. And, he nominates John Ashcroft, noted for his staunch opposition to legal abortion and contraceptives like the birth control pill and the IUD, to the position of attorney general. Although sex education is a tried-and-true counteragent to unplanned pregnancy, disease transmission and promiscuity, the further localization of education under Bush's plan can only weaken the standards that are currently in place. Contrary to the reassurances given to moderates on the abortion issue, the new administration's actions do not reflect concern with steady social improvement to reduce the country's abortion rate. This series of moves by Bush represents a concerted effort to undermine sexual safeguards and legal abortion in this country. Bucharest, 1967: Nicolai Ceausescu takes office and vows to support the Eastern Bloc's goals by increasing Romania's population to provide more strong backs to inspire the international communist conspiracy. He bans abortion and contraception outright. For a few years, Romania's population increased. After twenty years of the policy, however, the birthrate actually declined, orphanages were so overburdened that the government forcibly returned children to the parents who had given them up for adoption, and maternal and infant mortality became such embarrassments that Romania stopped comparing itself to the rest of Eastern Europe. Joyce Arthur points out in "Legal Abortion: The Sign of a Civilized Society," that when western reproductive health providers entered the nation in 1990, 10,000 maternal deaths were attributed to illegal abortions over the course of 20 years, 200,000 orphans were tallied, and 40 percent of the women were found to have lacerations and scars in their reproductive tracts from illegal abortions. To this day, Romania has the highest rate of abortion in Europe, the people are still afraid to use contraceptives because of the former government's propaganda and the country is known as a haven for pedophiles because of its unattended children. We do not live in a dictatorship, but what happened 30 years ago in Romania should serve as a warning of what can happen anywhere. Arthur points out that even in staunchly Catholic Latin American nations, illegal abortions are practiced by both rich and poor. When asked about her husband's stance on abortion, Laura Bush replied that she felt it was necessary to reduce the number of abortions in this country. This is a common goal of both pro-life and pro-choice movements. When pressed to give an opinion on Roe v. Wade, the First Lady replied that she did not favor overturning it. In this she is consistent. The number of abortions actually performed has little to do with their legality; it has to do with the level of sexual education and the availability of contraception. Still, many in the pro-life movement, including some members of the Bush administration, aim at reducing contraceptive availability. National standards for education are standard in Europe, even when it comes to sexuality, but the lack of them has put American public education at a general disadvantage. "Teaching abstinence" seems to be what the current system already does, but if it meant using distortions of fact and scriptural references in the classroom, we would at the least be doing children a disservice and probably exacerbating the unsafe sexual activity that already occurs. Nations like the Netherlands and Sweden have an average onset of sexual activity several years later than the United States and a quarter to half of the per-capita abortion rate. They have achieved such goals by strong sexual education programs and availability of contraceptives. Abortion is given on demand, but very rarely, in these nations. Cutting the US abortion rate in half would be a triumph for any administration to boast, but making sex riskier and eliminating legal abortion is not acceptable. David Cerutti is a Baker College junior.
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