Document: /pub/resources/text/breakpoint: BPT.94.04.15.TXT ---------------------------------------------------------- Note: Prison Fellowship has recently asked that email transmission of the BreakPoint commentaries be suspended until they decide how they wish to proceed with that matter. However, I have been given permission to email special noncommentary items like fact sheets and urgent announcements. Write me for the recent posts about transmitting BreakPoint over email. You have my permission to forward these posts ONLY if you are being sensitive to and respectful of the recipients' views and you KNOW that these posts will not be a threat to or abuse of their ideals, only if the copyright notice (if present) is retained, and only if there is no profit involved. If you've missed a post, you may get it from the USENET newsgroup bit.listserv.christia. This is an UNOFFICIAL transcript made from the radio broadcast. Mistakes in it are mine, not Mr Colson's nor Prison Fellowship's. Comments, corrections, questions are welcome; send to . * Friday, April 15, 1994 BREAKPOINT with Chuck Colson What's the number one US export to Third World countries? If the Clinton administration has its way, the main export won't be wheat or tractors, it will be abortion. In recent weeks, the state department sent cables to all overseas diplomats describing access to abortion as a "fundamental right of all women." The cable said the US would call for stronger language on abortion in a United Nations population program. Developing countries are unhappy about the state department's move. They see it as outright cultural imperialism - forcing them to accept American-style abortion on demand. Many Third World countries, especially Catholic and Muslim ones, have laws against abortion, and they feel the Clinton administration's aggressive promotion of abortion is crowding out much needed economic and humanitarian aid. Of course, the Clinton administration is trying to sell abortion itself under the label of humanitarian aid. State department officials claim that they just want to save women from the dangers of illegal abortion. The Planned Parenthood Federation of America claims that up to half a million women die each year in the developing world from illegal abortions. But these numbers are no more than propaganda ploys. A study by the Allen Gutmacher Institute, an affiliate of Planned Parenthood, admits that information on clandestine abortions is too uncertain to yield any solid data. And the World Health Organization doesn't even collect data on abortion-related death in developing countries. If abortion supporters were honest, they would have to admit that legalizing abortion may not decrease maternal deaths, but may actually increase them. At a press conference on Capitol Hill this week, Dr Margaret Orgola from Kenya said, if you travel to remote regions of Kenya you find a strange imbalance in medical supplies. Clinics are stacked high with birth control drugs and devices thanks to aggressive, Western population control organizations. But when it comes to important, life-saving drugs like penicillin the cupboards are empty. It doesn't take much imagination to figure out what would happen if a surgical procedure like abortion were introduced into a region that doesn't even have antibiotics ... massive infections and death. Here in America we have a rich heritage of rights and freedoms, a heritage we've been willing to fight for and shed our blood to protect through several wars. Today, the Clinton administration is asking us to put access to abortion on the same level as those rights we fought to protect. The state department wants to elevate abortion to a fundamental right - one that we should even export to needy countries. I say this is a slap in the face to anyone who wore a uniform to defend American rights and freedoms. We didn't face enemy fire to protect people's rights to destroy their offspring. We didn't watch our buddies die to make the world safe for abortion. Please, call your representative in Congress and protest this offensive hijacking of the language of rights. Historically, America has been an exporter of freedom and morality to the world, and you and I mustn't stand by while it becomes an exporter of death to the world. BreakPoint is copyright (c) 1994 by Prison Fellowship. To talk with Prison Fellowship about emailing BreakPoint write or call: Prison Fellowship (800) 497-0122 PO Box 17500 (703) 478-0100 Washington, DC 20041 (703) 834-3658 fax BreakPoint (800) 995-8777 The unofficial BreakPoint FTP site is ftp.cs.albany.edu:/pub/ault/bp ----------- David S McMeans amUous Mind Puzzles Dayton, OH BreakPoint with Chuck Colson