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Abortion, zealots and Randall Terry
By Peter Guinta
Senior Writer
St. Augustine Record
August 16, 2003
Reprinted with permission of the author

Zealots are high-pressure salesmen of ideas, candidates or causes, and I find most of them tiresome and irritating.

I dislike being told what to do, or not do, for society's sake. Or my soul's.

I prefer a slow, realistic and contemplative approach.

The Leesburg paper once sent me to cover a picket line of Apopka farm workers.

One of the organizers told me, "Peter, you've got to get involved and help us. If you don't, you'll be part of the problem of apathy. People are suffering here."

I sympathized with the struggle, but said my job was to tell people what happened, not get involved myself.

In that vein, I've caught heat over the last few days from people who hated my profile of former abortion activist Randall Terry.

Some said I shouldn't have mentioned Terry's half-million dollar house in Ponte Vedra Beach. It made it look like he was living high off contributors, one woman said.

Others, who remember the excesses of Terry's anti-abortion followers during the 1980s, castigated me for not describing those in detail.

I found a copy of that profile and looked at it again.

It doesn't need changing. Terry's arrival in the area, his search for a recording studio and the demonstration in Jacksonville were our news pegs. Everything else about his life was summarized. This wasn't a biography or critique of his life, but a quick sketch.

His new organization, the grandly titled Society for Truth and Justice, will be active around here. That's all right with me, even though I'm not likely to be one of Terry's supporters.

It's a free country. But I do resent both sides of the abortion issue accusing me of being on the "enemy" side.

It's not like I don't have a stake in the issue. In early 1975, my wife at the time learned she was pregnant with our third child. Surprise!

We already had two great kids and room in our hearts for a third, but there were complications. We weren't getting along and feared the third child would so bring so much pressure and expense that it would break apart the family.

Also, my wife had undergone a series of extensive X-rays as part of a diagnostic test, and her doctor told her that the baby-to-be would be deformed as a result.

Would we schedule an abortion? We agreed.

But at the last minute, as we walked into the clinic, we stopped and reconsidered.

We each learned that the other didn't want to do this, so we cancelled the appointment and decided to love the baby no matter how she came out.

Our newborn daughter was a wonderful and beautiful baby, perfect in every respect. Today she has her own adorable toddler, my first granddaughter.

We'd made the right decision. The doctor was wrong.

So, for a long time afterward, we were against abortion, thinking that this situation might arise in other lives. Mistakes happen in birth control and medicine, so why should a little child suffer?

Later, I learned that one's personal experience, while instructive and influential, does not always make good public policy.

Our daughter was born into a home that, while not wealthy, was at least lower middle class and literate. She'd always have what she needed -- love, nurturing, access to education and health care.

But not every mother can provide that. And not every mother is equipped to handle a surprise child. Perhaps other children will be denied resources expended on the new arrival.

So I can see the need for some way to stop an unwanted pregnancy. The sticking point is finding out exactly what point that a cluster of cells becomes a child.

That question is still being fought in the courts and by theologians.

Roe v Wade has been both universally praised and condemned, and I'm afraid that even one new conservative Supreme Court appointment by President Bush will change the balance of votes on that decision. If that happens, women who have become accustomed to the freedom to control their bodies will start their campaign to change the law.

Either way, don't tell me what God wants. How do YOU know? The word "abortion" doesn't appear in the Bible.

Those seeking backing in Scripture should look up Corinthians XII, "And there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are diversities of administrations, but the same Lord. And there are diversities of operations, but it is the same God which worketh in all."

To me, that says there are many governments and laws on Earth, and we should live and let live, and God will work it out somehow, someday.