Abortion-rights Boomerang

Has “reproductive freedom” turned into “femicide”?

Last year, the Indian state of Maharashtra (of which Bombay is the capital) banned sex-selective abortions. In India, where having boys is a way of saving for old age and where having girls means paying huge dowries to attract husbands, experts say tens of thousands of female fetuses have been aborted in recent years. Surprisingly, in a country that encourages abortion as a form of population control, feminist and human rights groups had achieved a ban on abortion purely for sexual preference.

As shocking as it is, this clearly discriminatory practice may somehow appear to be at home in Indian culture. It seems as if it could never happen here. This is 1989, and thanks to our society’s unique blend of Christian and Enlightenment principles, women not only vote and own property, they lead corporations. Yet fetuses are being aborted here—because they are female.

Medical geneticists, the doctors who perform prenatal testing to find out whether a developing child might have a chromosomal abnormality related to something like Tay-Sachs disease or Down’s syndrome, can also tell their clients the sex of their unborn child. Thus it becomes possible to choose to abort a fetus because it is a girl. Unfortunately, the procedure is becoming more acceptable.

In 1973 only 1 percent of geneticists said sex-selective abortion was morally acceptable. But today, according to a recent New York Times article, 20 percent of medical geneticists approve. It is impossible to measure the actual number of fetuses aborted because they were the wrong sex, but the doctors interviewed by the Times said they are all routinely asked by patients to test fetuses for gender. The number of parents making that request suggests a lot more is going on than getting the nursery decorated in pink or blue. At Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia, virtually all of the Indian women patients give birth to boys. Writes columnist Mona Charen, “Abortion on demand has given birth to boys on demand.”

The Feminist Boomerang

The reaction from the feminist front is the cautious coining of yet another fighting word: femicide. This is “a rare appearance,” writes John Leo in U.S. News & World Report, “of the suffix cide in a movement that tends to regard abortion as the simple sheddng of an unnecessary body part.…” But the language is right on target; femicide is what it is.

There is a perverse phenomenon in our society that could perhaps be called the Feminist Boomerang. Leaders of the women’s movement get an idea that sounds as if it will liberate women from the bondage that men have traditionally imposed on them. They fight for it and get it. And then the men turn newfound liberation into a still-newer oppression.

Thus the radical feminist insistence that women be treated like men in the workplace has nearly erased protective legislation that makes it possible for many women to work productively without endangering their health or their family’s well-being. Likewise, abortion on demand has become sex-selective abortion. And it isn’t always women who are making the decision to abort all those baby girls.

No doubt some would like to blame this state of affairs on men. And the morality of fallen masculinity, we must admit, looks pretty grim. Yet the answer will not be found in criticizing men, but in the sanctification and sensitization of men’s and women’s hearts and minds toward each other’s needs.

By David Neff.

What do Jessica Hahn, Debra Murphree, and Catherine Mary Kampen have in common? Hint: The answer, unfortunately, has something to do with television evangelism.

Actually, each of these women has had her 15 minutes on center stage—if not centerfold—after trysts with popular preachers. Hahn, of course, met Jim Bakker in a Florida motel, then sold her story, complete with pictures, to Playboy magazine. Publisher Hugh Hefner kept her around his mansion long enough to repackage her body, show it off one more time in his magazine, then send her packing. At last report, she had lost her job as a radio talk-show host in Phoenix. Fifteen minutes are up.

Murphree claims to have been the prostitute hired by evangelist Jimmy Swaggart to perform pornographic acts. This time, Penthouse moved in ahead of Playboy, giving publisher Bob Guccione, Sr., a boost on last October’s newsstands. Of course, her story would not have been complete without the obligatory gynecological photography that is a Penthouse trademark.

Enter Kampen. Last month, the Louisiana housewife and part-time “exotic dancer” helped Guccione, Sr., sell another bundle of magazines by recounting an alleged relationship with Swaggart that could be described generously as demented. Only this time there was no tearful confession. Instead, the rejuvenated evangelist vowed a bare-knuckles, winner-take-all fight to prove his innocence and make Penthouse pay for its mistake.

If Swaggart is telling the truth this time, and we suspect he is, Penthouse deserves not only the wrath of Jimmy, but the full force of this nation’s libel laws. The article has all the earmarks of pulp fiction: breathless descriptions of sex acts, apparently complete recall of raunchy dialogue, mysterious “witnesses” who never seem to materialize. But the effect is the same as if the story had been thoroughly documented: Swaggart gets taken down another notch. Cutting-edge stuff, Mr. Guccione.

But there are other issues to consider. For one, this new “revelation” is yet another reminder that the effects of sin linger, even after confession and forgiveness. By choosing to visit a prostitute, Swaggart knowingly risked becoming a target for every woman who has sold herself for another man’s pleasure. We are sorry, but not surprised.

Then there is the issue of Hahn, Murphree, Kampen, and any other woman who has been victimized by a sexually confused society. Despite progress in getting women into board rooms, there is no shortage of media for men who prefer to see their women—any woman—in a bedroom. The “enlightened” sexuality represented by magazines such as Penthouse is nothing more than exploitative sexism enhanced with airbrush and negligee. The tragedy here is that after Hahn and Murphree were used by the wayward preachers, Hefner and Guccione moved in quickly to scavenge the remains.

Finally, Penthouse’s latest approach to ministry scandal ought to settle any doubts about pornography’s agenda. Simply put, magazines of that ilk are designed to appeal to prurient interests. Despite their claims to the contrary, they are not interested in journalism, unless, of course, they can borrow the journalists’ tools and misuse them to take another swipe at Judeo-Christian values. Other magazines publish the facts surrounding televangelism’s moral shortcomings, as well they should. But Penthouse grovels in allegations.

No doubt the next installment is already on its way to the presses.

By Lyn Cryderman.

Prayer does work. That is the conclusion of the Journal of the American Medical Association. According to a new scientific study, hospitalized heart patients had fewer complications when other people prayed for their recovery.

Patients were randomly divided into two groups of approximately 200 each. Patients in the “experimental” group were prayed for by three to seven born-again Christians. Patients in the “control” group did not receive prayers. Neither group of patients was told whether they were prayed for or not.

We are pleased at this scientific confirmation of prayer’s effectiveness. We are almost as pleased as we were several years ago when science proved that prayer relieves stress. Or as we were when we learned that regular prayer helps a person organize and prioritize everyday life better. In fact, we are not surprised that no scientific study has ever suggested prayer is in any way bad for you.

No kidding; we’re really pleased.

But we are a bit wary as to how this new-found knowledge should be used. Should we use it to explain to our children why they should pray? If we do, we will lose a good opportunity to teach a more important and long-lasting value: obedience. We pray first to obey, not to profit.

Should we use this knowledge to convince our friends to pray more? If we do, we might gain some ground if prayer always changes things for the better. But the minute a prayer is not answered to our liking, praying may lose its appeal.

Perhaps this new scientific confirmation of how well prayer works should be dispensed like the treats we give our kids from time to time. Like candy, good news about answered prayer “tastes” great. But a steady diet of candy is not what good nutrition is all about.

John Calvin said that putting on the mind of God through prayer is like gardening. “God has sown the seed of religion in all men, but scarcely one man in a hundred is met with who fosters it in his heart, and none in whom it ripens.”

Prayer does change things. It allows that seed of religion that is in us all to blossom and flower. But reducing prayer to a technique for self-gratification will make our theology sick.

By Terry C. Muck.

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