Help me respond to this Pro-life Student!

Hello to the glorious community…I need your help.
I wrote an op-ed piece for my school newspaper (SMU) about women’s rights and Sarah Palin and how I felt after watching the VP debate on campus.
I received a surprisingly respectful email from a pro-life student. I responded to him just as respectfully. He then unleashed what I think is the entire, complete anti-choice Manifesto upon me. I am so overwhelmed by his rhetoric and self-righteousness, but I don’t want to write back without some advice ESPECIALLY because he thinks his argument is air tight.

It all started with me asking him to clarify the following sentences that he wrote: “However, I want you to realize that people who are pro-life are not anti-women’s rights. In fact, approximately half of the abortions pro-lifers aim to stop would protect women’s right to life – the first right ever mentioned in a truly American document.”
Ok, breathe. I know. I want to ask him if he thinks masturbation is murder, how he feels about the illegal abortion market, etc. but I need more. Here, below, is the entire email he wrote back. (Many, many trigger alerts.)
Dear Meg,
Allow me to begin by applauding your second sentence: “Discussion between both sides of this debate is vital to a better understanding of the issues and each other.” Wow! If you truly believe that, and I hope you do, you need to run for political office because we have very few people on either side of the aisle who would actually act that out. Many people claim such words, but I have met very few who actually believe them when it comes time to take action on a matter.
The last sentence of my response was simple. You must have assumed that I was being complex. I was not citing any erudite or unusual argument or anything like that. I was simply stating that approximately half of all abortions end with the death of what is (or at the very least what will become) a woman. Therefore, pro-lifers view themselves as protectors of that first right that is necessary for all rights: life. The name “pro-life” is not an accident. Pro-lifers are usually pro-life in many other ways as well (meaning that they do not limit their belief in life and life to the fullest). Pro-lifers want to give everyone an equal chance. How can anyone say they are egalitarian if they will not even accept the most basic right accorded to all human beings by our founding fathers – the right to life? Equal rights in this country has to begin with everyone having an equal right to life – the downs syndrome baby, the mentally retarded baby, the Siamese twins, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Liberalism is all about majority rule and minority rights. The most marginalized minority group in this country are the disabled. Everyone else at least has the ability to go out and get a job and fend for themselves. But I digress. In short, if you want to promote the rights of anyone – women in particular – you had better start with fighting for every woman’s and man’s right to life. You might say that a fetus is not a human, but you must agree that it will become one. I have yet to hear an argument that a fetus which is allowed to progress to full term uninhibited will ever cease to be human. I do not know how the idea that a fetus is not alive ever came to be. The egg is alive, the sperm is alive, the zygote is alive, et cetera. People ask: when does life begin? A better question is: when did it end? There is no lack of life in the reproductive process (no double entendre intended).
Moving on, I am happy to see that you accept “peaceful” pro-lifers. But I wonder how you see pro-lifers as violent (which is implied by your use of the word “peaceful”). Granted, some extremists have been violent against clinicians who perform abortions, but clinicians are not the subjects of your column. You are speaking about the rights of women, not the rights of “doctors” who are explicitly going against the oath they gave upon receipt of their medical degree. (Look up the Hippocratic oath and the other oaths used by medical schools to ensure that their students do not use medicine to harm people.) Violence is defined as physical force used to injure or destroy something. Since when do pro-lifers use physical force to injure or destroy women? The only injuries I have ever heard of that pertain to women getting abortions is the physical and emotional scars they receive from being operated on in an abortion clinic. Likewise, the only thing connected to this issue that is being destroyed (with the exception of the dignity and emotional balance of the woman receiving the abortion) is the baby (or fetus if you wish to act like what is inside the womb is anything other than a baby). On that note, when you know someone is not going to get an abortion, do you assume that the fetus is something other than human? When you have a friend who chooses to keep her baby, do you act like it’s not really alive or really human until the day it is born? I doubt it.
Moving on once again, you speak of misinformation on the part of pro-lifers. I have no evidence that such exists (not to say that it might); however, I have a great deal of evidence that explicitly cites misinformation on the side of those who are pro-abortion. (I have already alluded to such with my short and simple comments on the baby/fetus issue.) Planned Parenthood is the largest administrator of abortions in this country. Research Planned Parenthood. There’s a book that gives the history of Planned Parenthood along with the biography of its founder, and I know that Starr Parker recently published an opinion column giving a brief account of said history. (Seeing as how she is a nationally syndicated columnist, you should have no trouble finding this column online.) Since I have not read the book I mentioned, I can only tell you what I read from Starr Parker’s column. Apparently, the founder of Planned Parenthood was a eugenicist who wanted to weed out the undesirable black population. Furthermore, until recently, Planned Parenthood has particularly targeted low-income, low-education areas as places to locate a “clinic”. Now they are opening locations everywhere because abortion is becoming increasingly acceptable as a means of birth control.
I realize that you might take offense to me calling abortion “birth control”. But what else is it? Barring the cases where there is a legitimate possibility that having the baby will take the mother’s life, what else is it? I understand there is a difference between preventative contraceptives, emergency contraceptives, and abortion. I do not feel like pro-lifers misunderstand that. You mentioned that pro-lifers are against emergency contraception. This is not true of all pro-lifers. I see no problem with the morning after pill or IUDs. Far fewer – I would say an extremely small portion of pro-lifers – are actually against preventative contraception.
As for the idea that pro-lifers point to an all-too-idealistic understanding of the 1950s, I think you are a little young to know what the 1950s were like. I personally have no reason to assume that I know anything about the 1950s. I could ask my mom. She was born in 1952. She has quite fond memories of the 1950s. I could ask either of my grandmothers who were having kids in the 1950s (both also worked during WWII and afterward – during the fifties – to provide for their families. They were not merely housewives. I have never heard them voice any disdain for the 1950s. But truly I have no clue what the 1950s were like and neither does any other college student our age. I don’t care if they have taken sociology classes on the 1950s. If you didn’t live then, you can hardly have an opinion as to how enjoyable it was. Obviously women’s rights has come a long way, but I don’t know if that automatically means that women were on the whole unhappy in the 1950s. I, for one, would like to talk to women who lived through the 1950s and see what they would say about now versus then. If you have talked to a woman who lived through the 1950s about her experiences and what she makes of them, I am sorry for questioning you. If you have not, I encourage you to do so before you make sweeping comments about a decade that ended almost 30 years before you were born.
Your last line shows a lot of gusto. You know you’re a real opinion columnist when you save it all for the last line. Isn’t it sad that the common reader is so consumed by distractions that the thing that will stick with them after reading an 800 word column is the last sentence? I wish we had more time to really take things in. Rather, I wish we would take the time to really absorb what we read. Anyway, I’m digressing again. Your last line. First of all, you have to establish that people are legitimately trying to control women’s bodies. In your column, you cited courts as trying to control women’s bodies. You mentioned a case where a woman was ordered to not have any more babies as part of her parole. I think it would be quite wise for a woman on parole to avoid having children, but I agree that a judge should not be able to make such a ruling. You also mentioned sterilization. Sterilization is part of eugenics. Refer back to what I said about Planned Parenthood. If you have a problem with sterilization you should have a problem with abortion. Besides, if you’re going to have an abortion anyway, why not be sterilized and get rid of “the problem” in the first place. You only need to be sexually viable if you actually plan on giving birth sometime. This is not to say that government-mandated sterilization is a good thing. I agree that the government should not be able to get their hands on our genitalia.
If you think men in general (and husbands or boyfriends in particular) are trying to control women’s bodies, you might have a point if it were not for the notion of child support. You see, the courts say that if a man gets a woman pregnant and she chooses to have the baby it is his responsibility to help pay for that child’s rearing (if nothing else). However, some people suggest (and I assume you would be one of these people – correct me if I am wrong) that a husband or boyfriend should not be able to have any legal say in a woman’s right to an abortion. I understand that the woman is the one who has to carry and deliver the baby, but if our government forces fathers to pay child support, fathers should have a say in whether or not their child is born. You seem to think this is merely an issue of women’s rights. I agree that women’s rights are at stake here, but as I have already mentioned, the rights of the disabled, and truly the rights of every individual, are at stake when it comes to abortion as well. This is not simply a women’s rights issue. It is much more complex and widespread than that. If I am going to be held responsible for what happens with my sperm, I expect to have a right to decide what happens to the progeny of that sperm. Men have rights when it comes to abortions too.
To close my discussion of this particular point, let me point out that many pro-lifers are women. How could women be in some plot to ruin women’s rights? Hmm. Furthermore, I have no desire to control anyone’s life. But I think someone who chooses to have an abortion has a desire to control someone’s life. Once again, you cannot deny that a fetus which is allowed to progress to full term uninhibited will most likely be born healthy and will thus live a life much to their own choosing. It is therefore my opinion that the people who are trying to control life are the people who are trying to destroy it.
I see that I have neglected to address your claim about stereotypes. I honestly cannot say much on this issue. I can ask you a question though: have you done any research about whether these “stereotypes” are actually false? Do you have data to support your view that the majority of women who receive abortions are not pressured, not promiscuous, but educated – about abortion? If you do, please provide it. I am not well-versed in the statistics about abortion, but I have yet to see the kind of data you must have.
On that same note, you explicitly state that pro-lifers are lying to people about abortion. What lies are these? That the “thing” inside of them is a living human with a beating heart? That the baby inside of them feels pain and has unique fingerprints? That an abortion involves ripping the arms and legs off of the child to remove it from the uterus? Or that partial-birth abortion involved sucking the brains out of a living baby’s head? (If you have not read any primary sources provided by former employees of abortion offices, you should do so. The graphic descriptions they provide of abortions are heart-wrenching and disgusting.) That there are agencies that will help them if they decide to keep their baby? That adoption is a legitimate option? These are not lies. If there are other “lies” I do not know about, please inform me of them.
Another thing. You talked about the integrity of the healthcare system. My father is a pediatrician (and has been for over 25 years). He is probably the most respected practicing physician in his hospital and in our county. He can be sued if he is on call when a mother giving birth to a premature baby comes into the hospital and the baby dies (even though that same baby could still have been aborted). As I said before, medical students give an oath when they receive their MD stating that they will not harm a patient. It is the opinion of my father and many other physicians that the men and women who perform abortions are not part of the healthcare system and in fact are tarnishing the integrity of the healthcare system. The hospital where my father practices will not allow abortions to be performed on its campus. Many hospitals are this way. There is an active effort to keep abortions out of the healthcare system. This is because many medical professionals believe that abortions are not part of healthcare. There is undeniable evidence that it is in fact unhealthy for a birth to be unnaturally terminated. Besides the emotional and psychological damage that often plagues the mother who has had an abortion, there is also medical evidence that the hormonal imbalance that succeeds an abortion causes medical problems as well (unfortunately I must admit that I cannot remember where I heard this, but I would gladly look it up if you do not believe me).
By now, I think I have utterly nitpicked your entire email. I am sorry. Feel free to nitpick mine. I am in the habit of dealing with arguments against my opinions in this way. I am sorry that I did not inform you that emailing me could result in some lengthy reading. But please realize that this is not just a debate for me. I truly believe that we are wrong to allow human life to be so casually tossed aside. I do not hold anti-abortion sentiments because I want to control people’s lives. I hold anti-abortion sentiments because I truly believe that abortion ends life. I truly believe that every human should have a right to live and decide for themselves what to make of their life. That is the quintessential liberal value. I do not know how liberals have lost it. That is also the foundation for equal rights. I do not know how liberals have forgotten this.
Please feel free to respond with as short or as long of a reply as you wish. I hope that you can find something wrong with my argument. I look forward to being corrected. I appreciate rebuttals as a means of improving my stance. I need to be contradicted to maintain any edge I may have. But please, do not view this as merely a debate. Be real with me if you want to talk about this issue because this is a real issue (and I see from your column that you recognize this). Understand that I do not view this as a paper issue. This is real life to the max. I wish I had the pleasure of debating paper issues. I wish real life did not hold enough real atrocities to keep me busy.