A Personal Note

christian a. gregory cgregory at nwe.ufl.edu
Tue Apr 20 13:46:18 PDT 1999


doug wrote:

And, while it's still legal (though under constant attack), what's happened to abortion availability during the Clinton years? Is it harder or easier for a poor woman to get an abortion now than 10 years ago? I don't know the answer to that, but I suspect it isn't good.

indeed, the number of medical schools willing to teach abortion procedures has dwindled rapidly in the last 8 years. don't have the chronology (so don't know if this was under clinton's watch), but currently 13 states have passed requirements that women receive "counseling" about abortion (according to critics, this is almost always anti-abortion information) and, in all of these but one, have a mandatory delay before having an abortion. 7 more states have similar statutes on the books that have been blocked by the courts. that's to say nothing about the campaigns of violence against providers.

probably just as importantly, the crusaders against abortion who use violence are cast as the epigones of the New Left-- the Weather Underground, the October Group, etc. for example, james kopp, the guy suspected of shooting down dr. barnett slepian, was represented this way in david samuels' recent cover story in the nyt magazine (21 mar, 99).

best christian



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