As I prepared for college a shocking realization was born in upon me: I was a hick from the sticks. My home town was an Appalachian outpost that offered few alternatives to coal mining. I wanted to be cosmopolitan, sophisticated, intellectual. So decided to set aside everything I'd been taught, and to absorb real civilization from my professors and classmates.
Thence came my first abortion indoctrination: Biology of Sex. There was something strange about how Dr. Z approached human sexuality -- especially whenever we wandered near to his pet cause, abortion.
The first strange thing was our study of embryology. The first couple of weeks -- up until the point where the embryo still looked like a cross between a tadpole and a garbanzo bean -- was covered in excruciating detail, both in the textbook and in Dr. Z's lectures. But we leaped directly from the garbanzo-bean stage to 24 weeks without pausing at the growing of limbs or development of guts. Try as I might to keep an open mind, this seemed fishy to me. Why were they keeping us in the dark?
The second strange thing was our handy chart of comparisons. It listed the risks of various methods of birth control, from the most dangerous -- none! -- to the safest -- abortion. I wondered snidely how any of us survived to reproduce a second time if childbirth was so deadly. I also wondered why anybody bothered with Pills and IUDs and condoms and so forth if abortion was as safe as they were making it out to be. Foolish sensibilities? Try as I might to maintain an open mind, it seemed to me as if Dr. Z was a cheerleader for abortion.
The third strange thing was Dr. Z's diatribes. It shocked me to hear the racist things he said: that the only reason white people opposed abortion, for example, was that we preferred letting black children grow up to rape white women so we could execute them. This painted neither whites nor blacks in a flattering light, and I was appalled to watch my darker-skinned classmates unquestioningly jotting down notes to the effect that their children were destined to be felons. I also had known my share of white folks opposed to abortion. None of us had such a low opinon of our fellows -- we all figured that regardless of his or her skin color, every baby had as much chance of being a productive citizen as any other baby. But here was Dr. Z lying about people I knew -- whites who opposed abortion -- and about my black classmates who I thought would make fine parents of perfectly law-abiding children.
NEXT: Part 3 - Curiouser and Curiouser
The Entire Fence Sitter Series:
Laying the Groundwork
Biology of Sex
Curiouser and Curiouser
Under Pressure
Every Little Bit Helps
The Eye Opener
A Learning Odyssey
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