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Audio: Appearance on WBEZ

January 23, 2013/2 Comments/in Uncategorized /by Kelsey Hazzard

If you missed Secular Pro-Life’s appearance on WBEZ Chicago Public Radio yesterday, you can listen to it below. The segment begins at 5:35 with some background information from a university professor. SPL’s Kelsey Hazzard and abortion supporter Erin Matson come in around 12:00.

It was a short piece, so there were a couple of things I didn’t have the chance to say.

First, around 15:40, Matson trotted out a poll showing that approval of the Roe decision is at a record high. The host noted, rightly, that polls are contradictory. But a pattern does emerge: namely, that it depends on how you ask the question. If you ask when abortion should be allowed, large numbers of people say that they want abortion only to save a mother’s life, or in cases of rape and incest, or in the first trimester. When you put these various pluralities together, you get a strong majority. But then you also get a strong majority saying they support Roe, when Roe is what stops these majority-favored restrictions from being enacted! There’s a simple explanation for this: people don’t know what Roe v. Wade actually is.

Don’t believe me? In a recent Pew Research Center poll, 17% of adults over the age of 30 thought that Roe v. Wade had to do with school desegregation, the death penalty, or environmental protection. (If I confused Roe with Brown v. Board of Education, I’d tell the pollster I supported it too!) Another 20% admitted that they had no idea what the case was about. Among those under 30, the ignorance is even worse.

Second, I didn’t get to respond to Matson’s great sky-is-falling moment. After noting that she is 21 weeks pregnant, she said: “Knowing the restrictions that are out there– we recently had a woman die in Ireland because they said this is a pro-life country, here, um, in the United States […] we’ve created this situation where pregnant women no longer have full civil and human rights in this country. And that is truly behind the meaning of the anti-abortion rights movement.”

First of all, the Irish case she’s referring to is a case of media gone amok; the reporter who “broke the story” later admitted that Savita Halapannavar may not have requested an abortion in the first place. But the admission came too late; Savita had already become a poster child for abortion. Because who cares what she really would have wanted, right?

I am not in any way motivated by a desire to deprive pregnant women of human rights. As for Ms. Matson’s belief that she is a second-class citizen, I wish I could have asked her: why do you feel that way? Just because you might have to jump through some hoops before you could kill your (presumably wanted) late-term son or daughter?

I can’t understand the psychology behind needing that lethal power over your child, but I find it sad.

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Tags: international issues, late-term abortion, rape exception, roe v. wade
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https://secularprolife.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/SecularProlife2.png 0 0 Kelsey Hazzard https://secularprolife.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/SecularProlife2.png Kelsey Hazzard2013-01-23 12:00:002021-11-08 12:38:45Audio: Appearance on WBEZ
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2 replies
  1. Laura Nicholson
    Laura Nicholson says:
    January 23, 2013 at 6:17 pm

    "In a recent Pew Research Center poll, 17% of adults over the age of 30 thought that Roe v. Wade had to do with school desegregation, the death penalty, or environmental protection."

    Wow.

    I can understand not knowing every famous SCOTUS case. It'd be nice, though, if people polled would just say "I don't know what that's about" instead of "I support/don't support it."

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  2. Amanda Smith
    Amanda Smith says:
    January 23, 2013 at 7:59 pm

    Hey Kelsey,

    I notice Erin Matson talking about how reproductive rights has become a big part of the pro-choice movement. And I think this is something the pro-life movement could step into. Making pro-life just as much about safe pregnancy and contraceptives. Most of my friends and peers are pro-choice, and when it comes to the subject of abortion, many of them stand firmly that abortion needs to be available for the sake of safety of a woman's life.

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