Doug Thompson (Capitol Hill Blue) May 13, 2022 opinion piece nails the fact, to the Bible Thumper’s door, that there is no reference to “God’s Law” in the American judicial system — wfw
The right-wing zealots who proclaim America must follow a non-existent “God’s law” keep trying to return the nation to the dark ages but the progressive light is far too strong
In the late 1960s, a student in what was then called Radford College in Southwestern Virginia was put on “social probation” after she answered the phone in the Pocahantas dorm with “Pokey Abortion Center. Your rape ’em, we scrape ’em.”
The phrase emerged after a student raped at Virginia Tech had to travel to another state to get an abortion to terminate the pregnancy that came from the rape. Nowadays, a student uttering that questionable prose on a front desk phone would probably face expulsion.
Back in the sixties, abortion was against the law in Virginia, but not so in some other states. Young women facing an unwanted pregnancy still found those who would perform the procedure. At the Roanoke Times, I wrote a column about a 16-year-old Patrick Henry High School student who got pregnant from the night she lost her virginity in an encounter that would not be called “date rape.” She sought an abortion but lost her ability to have children in the future at the hands of an illegal, and incompetent, abortionist.
Letters to the editor at the Times declared the unnamed teenager “a Jezebel” or “whore” and claimed her loss of a future ability to have children as “God’s righteous judgment.” Several criticized the Times for publishing the story and called me “a sinner” for writing it.
The Virginia Press Association disagreed. They awarded the column First Place in the features category of their annual news writing competition. It would be the first of several awards in a career of writing and photographing the news.
The high school student later became a high school teacher. She and her husband adopted four kids and now have great-grandchildren.
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