US.POSTAGE PAH) PERMIT NO. 9323 CHWAGOJL

VOL. 9, NO. a BULK "ATE

P.O. Box 982 Evanston, Illinois 60204

lN THIS ISSUE: Abortion Controversy Doesn’t Die . . . Carpal Tunnel Syndrome

As the stakes are raised in the abortion issue——clinic bombings and jail sentences~—the central role of the medical profession in pro- moting abortions must not be overlooked.

Doctors were in favor of legal abortion long before the femi— nists joined in the struggle. While no—one can determine for certain whether abortion is good or bad for individual mothers, fathers, families or for our country, there is no question that abortion has been very good for doctors.

With the falling birth rate, abortion has "saved" modern obste~ trics. Hospital OB/GYN departments have been converted to "profit"

I)r'I‘obert centers" by abortion and~—perhaps even more important in the long Mendelsohn run——the management of abortion—related complications. Performing abortions has saved many graduating OB/GYN residents from financial disaster in their early——and later——years of practice.

The death—oriented practices of obstetricians have spilled over into pediatrics with denial of life by pediatricians not only to "defective" fetuses, but to those same infants who may have escaped the frying pan of intrauterine destruction only to face the murderous fire by the once—benign newborn nursery.

Has medicine paid a price for its leadership in legalizing abortion? While theoretical arguments abound about the effect of killing on the hearts and souls and minds of members of a profession which once was devoted to saving lives, few can argue with the distorting effect doctors have had on the English language. While the medical profession hasn't minded doing abortions, doctors haven't liked the word. So in the early l970's, abortion turned into "post—conception planning." If you entered the V.l.P. clinic of Chicago's Cook County Hospital, you may or may not have been a very important person. But, very likely, you would leave those sacred pre- cincts having had an abortion since those initials stood for "voluntary interruption of pregnancy." (And why do doctors continue to confuse the public by insisting on calling a miscarriage a "spontaneous abortion"?)

And what if abortion resulted because of promiscuity? Doctors simply changed the word. A person was no longer "promiscuous"; she now became "sexually active." (Sounds good, doesn't it. After all, who wants to be sexually passive?) What if abortion were linked to venereal disease? Doctors simply changed that pejorative term to the more acceptable initials S.T.D. (sexually transmitted disease). By changing the image, doctors tried to change the reality.

But the wordgame can backfire. Those whose religious views regard abortion as murder increasingly recognize the moral penalty of standing by while murder occurs. The abortion out-patient clinic bombings thus may represent a honing—in on those who directly wield the curette and may carry important implications for abortionists who operate in more protected in—patient settings.

Furthermore, as this Newsletter indicates, the medical carnage of legal abortion raises a new question——has the curette become even more dangerous than the coat hanger? Every one of you readers must keep a close eye on the crucial role of the doctor in the ongoing abortion controversy.