Pro-life pioneer discusses abortion

Twenty-five years to the day after a woman in Texas won the right for all women to have an abortion, the debate surrounding that decision continues to evoke great emotion.

As Mildred Jefferson spoke yesterday, it was evident that the issue remains unsettled.

During the afternoon, Jefferson, a former surgeon at Boston University Medical Center and a pioneer in the pro-life movement, spoke and answered questions at a Medical School event sponsored by the Christian Medical and Dental Society.

Abortions are more pervasive in the American population and often times the women receiving them don't fully understand the procedure and its consequences, Jefferson said.

"There is a large gap between what people want abortion to be like and what it really is like," Jefferson said. "The actual fact is that the country is being decimated by the termination of 4,400 unborn children each day."

Jefferson said things need to change.

"There are things that are right and things that are wrong, and when we identify something that is morally wrong, it is our duty to correct it," Jefferson said.

One hour into the symposium, a group of about 20 people arrived with pro-choice signs and began firing questions at Jefferson. The group had marched from the Diag to the Medical Center to protest Jefferson.

LSA fifth-year student LaSchon Harris questioned Jefferson's argument, saying the right to choose is a valuable asset for the American public.

"It's important to keep this choice available to everyone," Harris said.

Jefferson said she did not think the people who came to protest had their facts straight.

"I see some people with signs saying 'keep abortion safe and legal,' but who says those are the same two things," Jefferson said. "You don't know what is happening in those clinics."

One issue repeatedly raised during the discussion was whether an unborn fetus should be considered a human being. Members of the pro-choice crowd claimed that until the baby was born it was a "mass of cells" inside the mother.

But James Patterson of the Intervarsity Christian Fellowship, a co-sponsor of the event, disagreed.

"Partial birth abortion is considered by ... the vast majority of our senators and representatives as being infanticide," Patterson said.

In an evening lecture, titled "Loving the Least of These," Jefferson spoke of the lack of love many people show toward each other, and even themselves. She said loving yourself is the most basic and important kind of love.

"It is that kind of love we must extend to a child who was conceived in circumstances society may frown upon," Jefferson said.

Engineering junior Michelle Carpenter told a story about her sister, who chose not to have an abortion at age 16, but rather to carry the baby to term.

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