Conference turris::womannotes-v2

 That's a pretty bogus tactic, no matter what the issue or which side. 

 I can't believe that anyone could believe that that was "doing the right 
thing."

 The Doctah

    I do not condone this in any way, shape, or form... 
    Digital provides interoffice mail to support its business purposes.
    Linda, I'd contact corporate mail services ... check with your
    mailroom for a name... and see if they can track it.
    
    regards,
    Marge

    re: .2 
    
    No, Marge, I realize that you, and most of the 'pro-life' people don't
    condone this kind of thing, but unfortunately there are always
    extremists on every side of every issue.  What these people don't seem
    to realize, is that this kind of thing often *hurts* their side, as 
    people who are quiet are driven to become more outspoken (my case!) or
    fence-sitters are driven away from the extremist's side!
    
    As you can tell, I have calmed down a bit, though I just have to think 
    about that picture to get queasy.  
    
    I will be following up on this, as I said, more to go on record, than
    from any real hope that they can track it, but it is worth a try.
    
    Linda
    

    In my opinion, anyone who sends anonymous mail like this is a coward,
    afraid to take responsiblity for their actions, or beliefs.
    
    -roger
    

    What is "RU-486" ??  I've never seen or heard of it.  Is this an
    acronym, a drug or a new Intel CPU chip??
    
    ---Yubert

    re: .5
    
    	   RU-486 is the "Abortion Pill".  It is not a drug, in the 
    	strictest sense of the work.
    
    re: .0
    
    	   Despicable tactics, to be sure.  I received a similar
    	photo in the mail (no slanted statements about RU486).  In
    	my case, however, the picture was accepted willingly, was
    	not routed through I/O mail, and came from a known source.
    
    	   Was there a caption on the photo you received?
    
    	- Greg

    I am also very pro-choice, and I haven't received anything like
    that.  No one every said speaking out for your beliefs was going
    to be easy, but it *is* important.  Hang in there!
    
    Still pro-choice,
    Barb

    
    re:.6
    i do not believe it is accurate to say that ru-486 'is not a drug,
    in the strictest sense'. for one, i was under the impression that
    it had effects other that inducing clearing the uterine lining.
    

    
    
      RE: .6,.8
    
        From the American Heritage Dictionary (office edition)
    
      Drug: 1. A substance used as medicine in the treatment of disease.
    
            2. A narcotic.
    
    
    

    For more information on RU486, please look at Womannotes-V1, topic
    733.  It's pretty thorough.
    
    -Jody
    

    
    Good Day,
    
    I am Paddy Culbert                                 
    
    I've been a read only noter here for some time now. Basically because
    I had nothing to add.  
                      
    Up until now that is.....
    
    I am a  New Hampshire State Representative.  The Pro Choice conflict
    in the House was very intense last session.  I had not decided which
    way to go on the issue.  
    
    That is until I received mail at home one day that was VERY graphic.
                                              
    I was at the dinner table when I opened my mail that day.  
    
    It is the closest I have ever been to being sick from a picture.
    
    The outcome of the incident is  I am now Pro Choice and I doubt
    anything can ever change that.
    
    I am entering this just to let people know that shock mail has a
    tendency of creating the opposite affect.
    
    If the person that sent the mail to the base noter is reading this.
    
    You should understand the negative affects of your actions and people
    that take responsibility for such actions own the outcome.
    
    In my case I will always vote in favor of Pro Choice as long as
    I am in the House.
    
    paddy              
                                                                       
    
     

    
    	To augment what Paddy Culbert just said, I was (quite some time
    	ago) in church with my two small children. The time that was
    	normally set aside for whatever lecture/sermon of the day was
    	announced as being given over to someone with some important
    	information for us all. The persons in charge proceeded to
    	pass out very graphic pictures to everyone in the church. I took
    	one look, realized what was going on, got up, walked out with my 
    	two children and never went back.  
    
    							kim
    

    RE. unwanted mail/shock tactics;
    
      [Read this quick before someone takes 'offense' and it is erased!]
    
    Whoever sent the mail, using DEC's time and process was not thinking
    correctly.  It was out of place.  Give your name and pay for it
    yourself if that is what you want to do.
    
    Rep. Paddy Cuthbert's 'conversion' protests too much.  Too pat in my
    opinion. It begs the question of what the picture showed.  I find
    it hard to believe that someone made up their mind on such an important
    topic (is it a baby or is it not?) because of offense taken to graphic
    pictures.
    
    If you were alive in Nazi Germany and someone sent you pictures
    of the camps would you be outraged at the person - or the government?
    Depends on what you think you are seeing in the pictures.  If it
    was just like cattle with hoof and mouth disease you might not like
    to see it and be upset with the sender as opposed to if you recognized
    a common humanity with the figures in the pictures one would hardly
    be mad at the sender but rather with the government that allowed
    such a slaughter.   Which is the whole point of the pictures and
    the pro-life movement in using them.  We believe they're BABIES!!
    
    Human life begins at conception, according to ALL medical evidence, and to
    say that an unborn is not a born child is the same as saying a born
    child is not an adult.  We are viewing a biological continuum.
    
    On the truth or not of the above proposition hangs the whole dabate!
    
    One wonders what else could be used to so easily manipulate someone's
    vote?  Was it a pro-choice person who sent her the mail?  I know of 
    pro-choice callers who claimed to be pro-life and abused their Reps on 
    the phone over HB377.  There are phoney 'Rescues' - with make up, 
    offensive signs and all - by pro-choice people trying to make 
    Operation Rescue offensive to the public.
    
    And how about all those coat hanger pictures?  The ones Bill Baird
    waves around on every talk show.  Is he multiplying pro-life forces?
    Which is more offensive, pictures of an act or the act?  When I
    see those pictures I see a woman killing herself in the act of killing
    her child.  A double tragedy!  Because you see no child in the pictures
    you react the way you do - to the pictures and the sender.  If there
    is no child then you are of course correct, and visa versa too.
    
    Pictures of dead jews/slavs in the camps are terrible too.  The question
    in this case is not are the pictures horrible but do they really
    show a child.  NOW, etc. wants abortion for the whole nine months
    "without restriction and without apology"!  A picture of the reality
    of that can't be swept under the rug - unless you've already made up
    your mind and closed it to the possibility that an eight month 'fetus'
    (Latin merely meaning 'little one') is a baby.

    So I would say it wasn't a bad thing to do, just a poor way to do
    it.  Sorry for the length - and the brief time you will have to
    read this.
    
    Regards,
    
    Ken

    If isn't so much a matter of whether or not someone "takes offense" at
    what you have written, but the fact that you have, *I* believe, violated
    the rules of *when/where/how to discuss abortion* in =wn=!
    

    re -1:
    
    If that is so, then it is also so for this entire string.
    
    Marge

    
    
    RE:   .13
    
       Ken,
    
         First     it is Rep. Paddy Culbert not Cuthbert. 
    
    It always helps to pay attention to details.
    
        > Was it a pro-choice person who sent her the mail? 
    
          I'm a him not a her.  
    
            Him is always spelt Paddy.
    
    So much for my nit picking.......
    
    I have heard all sorts of ranting and raveing as yours.  Your pro-life
    side has done more to sway my peers into a pro-choice than anything.
    
    The pro-choice people were always in control of their emotions and
    arguments.  They buried us with logical information and data.
    
    Don't kid yourself the pro-choice people do not have to make out
    as pro-life people to make pro-life look radical. They have been
    very successful at it all by themselves.
    
    I was not so easily swayed as you may think.  There were many hours
    spent thinking and talking and discussing this with MD's, clergy,
    and the so-called experts.  I was at the point of deciding my position
    when I got this shock mail.  And bingo it was the straw that broke
    the camels back.
    
    One can talk to me in an intelligent manner but when one tries to
    intimidate me -----theylose----- every time.....
                            
    paddy

    I think I side with Marge on this call, Nancy...Ken's comments sail
    very close to the wind in places, but they still come down on the right
    side.
    
    I will ask everyone to cool it, however.  Ken implied some fairly
    insulting things about Paddy's decision to take a pro-choice position;
    rather than asking it to be hidden for re-write, Paddy� chose to respond
    in person.  To me, that makes it even...and it should stop here.
    
    						=maggie
    
    
    
    
    � It's the second commonest Irish nickname for Patrick, btw Ken, and as
    Paddy said, never used as a nickname for Patricia.

    Response to .14!!
    
    Ok, let's tippy-toe through the tulips and not mention the 'A' word.
    But how in the world DOES one talk about pictures of an " " without
    mentioning what it is????
    
    And if my piece is against the rules what about the first and other
    pieces?  Aren't they talking about pictures of an " "??  Or is it
    that you CAN talk about it if you just don't use the word.  Rather
    I think you can talk about it if you don't take a pro-life viewpoint.
    
    But that's just one man's perspective from the wastelands.
    
    Regards,
    
    Ken
    Glad you don't think the issue is 'offense' but rules.  I think
    the rules, while having some purpose, are stretched to favor one
    point of view - guess which.

    re: .17
    
    I'm glad, =maggie.  I like to see the debating left in except when it
    ratholes or becomes personally insulting (in either direction)!
    
    :-)
    
    Nancy

    re: 18
    
    Relax, Ken!  See .17 and .19.  Your note wasn't pulled, and I'm glad
    (even though I'm pro-choice).

    Re.16 (P. Culbert)
    
    Oh dear.  They say the fingers and the eyes are the first to go!
    Sorry I misspelled your name, but I wouldn't call your gender a
    nit.
    
    I'll send under separate cover a brochure I wrote for legislators
    on the topic.  Even if it is too late.
    
    Beware of making judgments based on the demeanor of the presentors.
    Read Speer's comments (Spandau Diaries) on how he was taken in by
    Hitler when he went to public meeting expecting to be entertained
    by a raving lunatic in uniform and instead met a serious calm talking
    man in a business suit who impressed him so much he joined the party!
    
    Your present explanation sounds more reasonable as to the process
    that led you to your present position.  Now I still think you are
    wrong, but less of a reactor to shock pictures.
    
    Warm Regards,
    
    (I'll be working for your defeat in the next election.)
    
    Ken

>                       <<< Note 872.13 by MAMIE::ARNDT >>>
    
    
>    Human life begins at conception, according to ALL medical evidence, and to
>    say that an unborn is not a born child is the same as saying a born
>    child is not an adult.  We are viewing a biological continuum.


	 Nit, I don't believe medical evidence has been able to
	 define when human life begins.

	 The medical community, I believe, has refused to provide a
	 definate, factual answer as to when human life begins,
	 because they simply don't know......   Any opinions released
	 by the medical community are purely opinion as to the
	 beginning of life.

	 Yes, conception is the beginning of the chain of events that
	 could lead to a living, breathing child, but it cannot and
	 has not, to my knowledge, been defined as the point at which
	 human life begins.


	 Please correct me if I am wrong.

	 End nit.

	 kath

    Glory.  GLORY!!
    
    You've put the lie to my perception that a lost wandering pro-life
    boy who stumbled in here might clear his throat and say a word only
    to be hooted down.
    
    I feel like Tiny Tim on Christmas morning.
    
    Please ignore my bumptious style.  To know me is to love me.

    Warm Regards,
    
    Ken

                          <** Moderator Response **>

    Okay, there's another trail closed off:  Ken made an unsupported
    assertion about when human life begins, Kath made a similar rebuttal,
    and that's where this should stop.  
    
    Discussion of the "technical" issues surrounding abortion should be
    taken to 183.* under the guidelines for that string listed in .779,
    i.e., if you make an assertion, you must either *offer evidential
    support for your statement* OR *state clearly that it is your personal
    and/or religiously-based belief which is thus not subject to proof or
    disproof*.  You may NOT make statements, either first-hand or
    indirectly via choice of quotation, which by their character appear to
    impute the ethical or intellectual inferiority of those who don't agree
    with you.
    
    						=maggie

                          <** Moderator Response **>

    I have deleted a note whose author failed to heed my warning in .24
    
    						=maggie

    re:.0
    Linda,
         
    	That is tacky. I haven't received any of that mail as of yet.
    I would hope that those compelled to send such literature would
    be brave enough to suffer the consequences of signing their names.
    
    Kate