INSIGHTS

An agonizing issue that won’t go away

LET ME broach the subject
of abortion by stating this:
F believe human life is to be
valued and cherished.

I believe the vast majority of
women and men in this country
hold similar views about human
fife. So I don’t think we need an
sHarged pheio of a fe:us upona
billboard to remind us how life
stirts.

1 is insulting, insensitive and
manipulative in the worst way.

Every thinking individual —
who knows abortion goes right to
the heart of how we view human
life - - should have spent many
hours agonizing over the issue.

For many of us, I suspect, that
agonizing starts as we get further
away from our naive 20s. Many
of the women I know, back in
their student days, considered
abortion almost like any other
medical procedure. {f you got
pregnant, you could always get
one.

Now, it’s not quite that simple.
There’s a realization you will have
to live with not just the physical
but the moral and emotional
fallout of such an action.

I guess one of the major prob-
tems with the anti-choice groups
is a lack of recognition that to
have an abortion is an intensely
personal decision for a woman
and, let's hope, a couple. As an
individual grapples with all the
ramifications of disconnecting an
emerging life from her, she cer-
tainly doesn’t need groups of
self-appointed moral counsellors
screaming at her that she’s a
murderer.

The decision to abort is an ex-
tremely painful and traumatic one
for women and men. They
shouldn*t have to deal with a
placard-carrying stranger — or
the members of a hospital board
— trying to impose their view and
direct the course of her life.

“We have been as reasonable
and loving as we can to give these
abortionists a chance to decide
against it,’’ Rebecca Ott of the
Vernon Pro-Life Society warned
doctors at the Vernon Jubilee
Hospital in April.

I find the arrogance that fuels
this remark astounding.

Ms. Ott and her group are teli-
ing doctors in some sort of weird
tut-tut-teacherish way that

Catherine

JUST ADD WATER

they’ve been given a chance and
now they’re going to be punished
for their disobedience (in this
case, the punishment was the
promise of picketing the doctors’
homes and offices).

When you’re determined to in-
terfere in someone's reproductive
life, respect for the individual and
democratic rights tend to fly out
the window,

Moth saga like Twilight Zone

Dear Editor:

It has iow become quite boring
and repetitive to read and hear
about the possible destruction to
be inflicted upon us by an elusive
gypsy moth. It makes one feel
that he/she is a player in an
Alfred Hitchcock or Stephen King
thriller.

It has never been confirmed or
established that there are any gyp-
sy moths here other than the ones
which were caught almost one
year ago. Agriculture Canada is

going on ‘‘assumption.”’

The only hysteria is that created
by John Bell and his hand of
merrymen, who have misled the
pubiic from the very beginning,
and those who continue to ride on
the wings of this mad man.

To say that we have an infesta-
tion or possible infestation
without any concrete proof is to
say that we are all living in the
“Twilight Zone.’’ How could this
“fantasy'’ have gotten so out of
hand? What gives man the right

to continually destroy this planet
with so little regard for others and
the creatures that share it?

The only eradication taking
place is of the people of Van-
couver and those who share its
space — not the gypsy moth. The
only evident fact is that our forest
industry destroys more trees in
one year than this elusive phan-
tom moth could destroy in our
lifetime.

Kim Gromow
North Vancouver

NVD stood alone against spraying

Dear Editor:

1am writing to thank North
Vancouver District’s council
and- mayor for having the
courage to stand alone among
all the municipalities to be af-
fected by aerial spraying for
the gypsy moth.

They alone took the concerns
of the many residents seriously
enough to investigate and make
a decision to appeal the is-
suance of the permit. When the

provincial government took
away this avenue of bringing to
light the many issues involved
in the spray program, the
mayor and council again acted
quickly and decisively to seek
an injunction which would
have re-instituted the demo-
cratic appeal process.

Even though this was unsuc-
cessful, it has shown people
across the province what a dif-
ference it could make to have

an accessible, open-minded
and responsive group of men
and women representing us,
people who have the will to
speak for human values, and to
look beyond the panic-driven,
high-tech, economistic cowboy
approach, which, for the pres-
ent, dominates the political
arena.
This will be remembered.

Deanne Mandell

North Vancouver

[also consider the description
of doctors as ‘‘abortionists’? —
which implies thy’ve set out to
make it their career — odious.

I, for one, breathed a huge sigh
of relief when the current Conser-
vative government’s efforts to
keep abortion in the Criminal
Code failed.

For me, the failure of the pro-
posed legislation was a confirma-
tion that the issue of what an in-
dividual woman does with her
body has no place in a court of
law.

And a majority of Canadians
have indicated that they agree
with this premise.

It’s interesting that the anti-
choice faction focuses entirely on
their view of the morality of abor-
tion; they ignore completely the
social results of unwanted children
with whom parents simply can’t
cope.

How can anyone possibly say to
an unemployed worker who is a!-
ready losing his ability to support
his family that he-and his wife
must have another child? How
can anyone possibly say to a
teenager who still needs parenting
herself that she must parent a
chitd?

Not only do many people today

face financial pressures that could
push them and their family over
the brink, many don't have the
support of an extended family or
another support network to help
them through tough times.

When you add to this Canada’s
continuing lack of decent, licensed
childcare, the decision to abort
can literally be one of family sur-
vival.

So if, as Hilda Thomas of Van-
couver'’s Everywoman’s Health
Centre Society says, ‘‘Nobody in
the whole wide world is pro-abor-
tion,’’ then what can those of us
who are agonizing do?

Clearly, we must support efforts
that increase the flow of informa- .
tion abcut birth control, par-
ticularly to teenagers. I’d like to
see future generations of teenagers
growing up with a keen sense that
pregnancy when they’re young
should be strenuously avoided -
because abortion is not a desirable
method of birth control.

Of course, this is a long-term
solution that addresses the need
for deep-seated changes in at-
titudes. And this type of work has
never been as appealing as joining
a dramatic crusade to bring people
to their senses.

THE NORTH SHORE
NEWS recently polled
area residents about
the gypsy moth spray-
ing program under way.

We asked 425 peopie “Are
you in favor of the gypsy
moth spraying program? *
The majority, some 72%,
were in favor of the insecti-
cide spraying. Only 10.4%
said they were not in favor

and 17.6% had no opinion.

We asked the same 425
people “Did you notice any
adverse effects from the

spraying?"

Most people,

91.1%, said they did not
notice any adverse effects,
while 5.4% said that they
did. Another 3.5% had no

opinion.

Appeal was waste of money

Dear Editor:
North Vancouver District Mayor
Dykeman waits to see if it is wor-
thwhile upholding the opinions of
those pressure groups whose
members may produce more
votes.

He has now gone too far on the
question of spraying for Asian
gypsy moths.

How dare he spend a portion of
my tax money to take an affadavit
to the B.C. Supreme Court to
support the views of a group of
lunatics the vast majority of
whom have no scientific knowl-
edge of the actions they protest?

Gerald Mason
North Vancouver