Focus 580; Beyond Choice: Reproductive Freedom in the 21ST Century

It's 11 0 6 on focus 580 Good morning my name is Jim filling in for David Ensor this morning on the controls Jason Croft our producer this morning Harriet Williamson in the second hour of focus. We're going to be talking to Alexander Sangar Alexander Sanger has written a book entitled Beyond choice reproductive freedom in the 21st century. And he is the grandson of Margaret Sanger the founder of the birth control movement over 80 years ago and is currently the international chair of the International Planned Parenthood Council and serves as a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations Population Fund. Mr. Sanger Good morning. Good morning and thanks for being with us this morning. My pleasure. If you have a question for Alexander SANGER You can call 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 if you're out of the 2 1 7 area code 800 2 2 2 9 4 5 5 as always on focus we do ask that you do keep the questions sort of brief and to the point so that when get as many calls in as possible. Mr. Sanger I think if you don't mind they will just sort of start off with a little historical

perspective as to who who was your grandmother and how did you get involved. In the Planned Parenthood movement. Well my good my grandmother was the daughter of an Irish Catholic immigrant and her beginnings her decision to start the plan parent at the birth control movement came from two things that happened in her life one that her mother was pregnant 18 times and had 11 children seven miscarriages and died at age 49 and she had to drop by the school made up of the grade bring up her younger brothers and sisters and she never forgot the connection between unplanned pregnancy and early death for women. My grandmother became a nurse and she nursed women on the Lower East Side of New York who were going to back alleys for abortions back in 1900 and one thousand twelve and one too many of these women literally died in her arms and

she said Enough something had to change. And that got her going trying to make birth control available and legal for the women who needed it. In this in this country and around the world she was an inspiration to me. I saw her give a last speech she ever gave she was 22 years old in a pretty poor health. But she was an inspiring woman she was magnetic very soft spoken. But very persuasive and believe her entire life that her cause would elevate the status of women and unable them to become full citizens in this country. And how about yourself how did you get involved with Planned Parenthood. Well my grandmother what really was an inspiration I studied her in college I wrote my senior history thesis on her life. I was the first person allowed into her archives after her death. And I read her diaries and her letters and all the notes she kept over the years. And I kind of tuck that away in the in the back of my mind over the

years I practiced law and was in business for about 20 years. And because the Reagan administration that inspired me in a funny way to join Planned Parenthood because he instituted a gag rule on doctors. And the first President Bush also did this trying to prevent family planning doctors in federally funded clinics from talking about the alternative of abortion for women who came in and got a positive pregnancy test and decided that it want to be pregnant and want to give birth. And the Reagan administration the Bush administration said that these doctors were not allowed to mention abortion. I thought that was an outrage. Both my parents were doctors and I believe the doctor should be able to give advice to their patients. And lay out alternatives for patients. So that was the that was the impetus for good. In the end to Planned Parenthood you have previously served as president of Planned Parenthood in New York City. And you know I found it interesting.

Is there one I guess right up top is there any top again our country today that that is probably that people have stronger opinions on the reproductive rights and and abortion than those sort of where they fall down on what side of the line. I think it's probably the most contentious issue in our so-called culture wars today I think it's probably always been for the last 200 years in this country been fighting about reproductive issues certainly civil rights in its time was an enormously contentious. We had a civil war over it. And gay rights today the issue of gay marriage it's certainly the it's the sharp differences of opinion. But you know reproductive rights the first law criminalizing birth control in this country was in 1821 what our country was founded birth control was legal. So was abortion by the way abortion was legal. And that is that that we've been fighting about this back and forth for the almost the last 200 years. It's amazing in our country's history we've gone from

abortion to birth control big legal to Big totally illegal now legal again and now there's a huge part of the American people want to criminalize it again. We can't seem to make up our mind. In your book Beyond choice you start off with I think a very interesting story about you and your wife. You have three sons and I think you this one refers to your middle son is that correct. Yes. That you're I guess somewhere along the line during the pregnancy you were told that there might be a genetic problem. You know I have that right. Yeah. My wife said about you know I has a genetic disease unfortunately not a very serious one. It involves hip dysplasia which she has and the doctor said Well this is genetic and he said you know someday we'll have a test where you can determine whether you or your unborn child your fetus your baby is going to be going to have this disease and my wife responded immediately she said I would never kill my

baby because I got him. Displeasure so that but there were an interesting conversation my wife and I had when we left the doctor's office where she said Oh of course I think abortion will be legal but I'm not going to have one just because there might be a genetic problem with with the baby I'm carrying. And you know what. Certainly an awful lot of women who feel that abortion should be legal and available are not going to have it themselves but I think I think you make the comment then that that sort of puts you right where most of America is and I think absolutely. I think most of America and certainly all the polling whether they like abortion or not think it's moral or not whether they think it's right for them or not. I think it ought to be available to other women who who think they need it and who for some reason cannot have the child that they're carrying. We have a call in line one let's go to that call right now good morning you're on the air with Alexander Sangar. Yes good morning. It's a pleasure to talk to you.

At the time of the of the kids be on choice I thought you know choice was the most important thing that women can have about their reproductive life. But what do you mean by beyond stats. I find it intriguing and I'll hang up and listen. Well I'm glad you got the message and were intrigued by the title because that's what publishers of course want to do and authors want to do. My argument is that the arguments based on choice have not. Been effective in changing American public opinion. The polling to the extent we believe polling in this country shows that public opinion about abortion has not changed since 1975. The Gallup poll which has been doing this polling the longest asked questions about abortion with exactly the same wording over the last 30 years and it shows the American public opinion hasn't changed a single percentage point. So I'm I believe in choice.

I believe in women's autonomy. I believe that reproductive decisions are better made by individuals by women rather than by the government. But alas these arguments are not persuasive and in reaching the American people and getting them to change their mind and become more pro-choice and actually to actually maybe vote on the issue when they go into the ballot box and vote for candidates who who share that opinion. So that's why the book is called Beyond choice and I'm trying to present some new arguments based on some you know what human nature is all about what biology. And human evolution have to add to the mix and to try to ask for the American people the following question why should there be reproductive freedom in the first place. That is not a question we in the pro-choice movement have asked and we certainly haven't answered it. And. That answer is space saying that the woman's choice it's a matter of woman's autonomy. While there are true

don't answer that fundamental question about why women should have that freedom in the first place and that's the question I'm I am trying to answer. OK it's 11:16 if you have a question for Alexander SANGER You can call us at 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 or 8 hundred to 2 2 9 4 5 and we are talking about his book Beyond choice reproductive freedom in the 21st century. You use the term reproductive strategy in your book for for women and for men. Couldn't Would you mind sort of telling us what you mean by that. Yeah. People don't have children randomly or haphazardly or by chance every one of our ancestors and we now have our children strategically. Maybe go unconscious but there are elements of strategy and how we time and space and plan our children for the best possible outcome and the outcomes include having the woman survive childbirth having the child

be born healthy and get the child no food and shelter over the next 21 years food to get that child to adulthood. This is the biologists have been figuring out over the last 20 more years the whole field of evolutionary biology has developed showing that all animals including ourselves do have reproductive strategies that Mother Nature has a system through the process of evolution through the process of natural selection. Where every species tries to see to it that their their progeny survive their children survive and we are no different. Women have had to evolve to plan and space and time their children because pregnancy is so dangerous. Pregnancy has been throughout all of human history the biggest killer of women the biggest preventable killer of women and women die from pregnancy because their pregnancies are spaced too close together they're too

young to give birth and they're malnourished and that's what birth control and abortion to a lesser extent allow women to to do it too. Time and space implant pregnancies because when a woman dies prematurely leaving children behind it's a lot less likely that those children are going to survive to adulthood. And women have evolved to play the odds so to speak to do what it takes in order to get their children to adulthood and abortion. It involves a tradeoff. It's in many ways a sad one. And too many people end up on an acceptable one. To trade unborn life for the lives of children who may already be born or for the lives of future children not yet born. But that's what reproductive strategy that women are trying to give their children the best chance of survival getting to adulthood and in turn having children.

OK let's go to the phone lines. Line 1 in Abana you're on the air with Alexander Sanger. Thank you. I was wondering what he would have to face about the growing definition of what constitutes a fetus. I remember when the IUD were occasional but were originally introduced they were supposed to stop an embryo from implanting and that was not considered an abortion. Now I understand that with plan B it's considered by many people that this prevents a fertilized egg. Embryo from implanting in the wall of the uterus and now and now a certain group of religious pharmacists are saying that that is a fetus and that constitutes an abortion. Also the embryos that are kept in frozen in petri dishes they are considered. They're considered babies with a foal and snowflake

babies. Senator Brownback called them and that's considered an abortion too. So I just wonder where the definition is going to stop. Thank you. OK very good point I guess for your listeners who aren't familiar with the term plan B that refers to a brand of emergency contraception the so-called morning after pill which women can take up to a three day sometimes up to five days after unprotected intercourse or if a condom breaks and it reduces the chances of pregnancy by about 85 percent. And so the caller correctly points out there is a lot of argument about there. And the sort of the sort of the question where does when does life begin and when does when is there a human being. When does the soul enter the body. You know I thought all wrote about all this back you know in the fourth century before Christ. It's been the age old issue about who when this life began when when to serve a

human being and I think these are all different different questions that we have we kind of have to parse it out there. The one thing that biologists know I believe in starting with the biology before we get to the religion of the reality. I don't think we can come to religious or moral conclusions about about life until we understand really really what the biological biological foundations are that we're that we're talking about. And three out of four fertilized eggs do not survive the nine months to be born. Only one out of four fertilized eggs when left to its own devices survive those nine months half of fertilized eggs do not implant in the uterus and half of embryos that are implanted miscarry. So that leaves one out of four that are going to make at the time wants to be born. And you know when you when you leap from that and then you try to come up with a religious or more conclusion about that a conclusion about when the soul enters the

body it's pretty difficult for me to come to a conclusion that there's anything particularly sacred or holy about a fertilized egg since Mother Nature has the system or God. It's got a system that three out of four are not going to be born they die they don't survive they're killed by nature so I think when you look at it at that point of view. I think we probably ought to give a little bit of leeway to the women of the debate to make decisions about whether or not they want to be pregnant and not treat a fertilized egg or even an early embryo as something not necessarily worthy of the protection of the law. And actually I thought that that's where Aristotle came out he and he came out and said The soul entered the body after 40 Chait 40 days of gestation for a male embryo and 80 days of gestation for a female embryo. And that that's you know in some minds of fourth century BCE Greek you know been a sexist joke.

But he came to that because back then they thought that the female was a beautician from the male and they thought they thought it was longer for the female to get formed and therefore of the soul with the late entering the female body even more than the male. Interesting. 11:23 Let's go to line number two. You're on the air with the Alexander Sangar. Just say when I was going to talk about I had I have a relative who had suffered two miscarriages and already had a normal birth two miscarriages and then a child born with birth defects in her legs her legs urns the bones are not are not right. And in that case the parents chose to continue the pregnancy. But I was telling my my daughter in law who has two young children of her own now about the miscarriages so that she then the family would be aware because these women talking about it and my daughter in law who is a biologist said you know it used to be that we didn't really know how

many miscarriages were happening really early because we didn't have really good pregnancies. And now even the home pregnancy tests are pretty good. And so women are becoming much more aware of how frequently they actually miscarried. And. She was saying this puts a lot of pressure on people who are trying hard to conceive and I can see that. But I was taught and I'm also going to say that in nature that's the way that Nature takes care of errors that happen. The cell division and birth defects are fatal. I'm pose it's also possibly a problem and if the environment isn't correct and I'm wondering whether with all the emphasis the fertilized egg being a human being from the Right to Life folks whether we're going to have people women if this is allowed to be projected toward the future you could have

somebody who smokes. I don't think people should. But who ends up with a an early miscarriage being prosecuted for murder because she didn't know the right environment in her uterus because she was smoking or who knows what. Naturally many other organisms also have that not all fertilized eggs survive. And there's the sort of the overproduction of eggs so that you have a certain percentage of surviving and you also have situations where. The mother may abandon or not nurse or whatever. A newborn I'm talking about animals that are not well enough to survive. I'm not suggesting that we do that now but in a way our government

seems to do that by emphasizing fertilized eggs and not taking care of people once they hear it. The mothers like you have a right to life if you're a fertilized egg but once you're here well it's your fault if your parents are poor. OK let's let Mr. Sanger comment some good points. Well that it sounded to me like you were reciting one of the chapters of my book and we were certainly on the on the same wavelength. I think what reproductive strategy means is that we've got to look at the totality of the reproductive process which involves first of all trying to find a mate a suitable mate and then trying to get pregnant which is which is not easy as I said with three out of four fertilized eggs don't make it and then survive childbirth. And then nurse to the child in a minute. Humans are almost unique to being defenseless and helpless for the first three or four years of life needing a normal. Protection from both parents and nurturance

and then waiting hopefully at least until you're in your twenties with an educated and working before you start having children. We know that doesn't always happen but that that's probably both parents would consider that a goal. And this takes a lot of work and a lot of effort by my parents and grandparents to make it happen. Which is why reproductive control and autonomy I believe is so important because it does take so much effort and it's fraught with difficulty and there are dangers everywhere. And our government the role of government I believe should be helping people make the reproductive decisions they want to make and not getting in their way. And not only leaving the decision to become pregnant and give birth to the individual but also making sure that we've got a system where children are nurtured and get the nutrition and get the care that they need to get to adulthood so they can repeat the process.

Thanks. OK thanks a lot for your call. Our guest this hour on focus 580 is Alexander Sangar and he's talking about his book Beyond choice reproductive freedom in the 21st century. I also want to mention Mr. Sanger forgot to do this during the introduction you're going to be in our community tomorrow night as the featured speaker at the. Parent head of the central Illinois gala event celebrating 65 years of service. And so we hope you enjoy your visit to champagne. I plan to thank you. Let's go back to the phone lines. Line number three. Champagne County you're on the air with Alexander saying good morning gentlemen. I'm going. You ready. I guess the point that was just said about universal health care for the fetus but nothing after after part of so I think that's such an important issue because we ought to live in a society that actually values everyone and who is alive and and has universal health care but it's an actual absolute atrocity that

we can be arguing about this and then and there. There are many people many children even young children who are not getting at reasonable care at all. I want to do to review the hearings I endured every bit of it I want to congratulate this woman Sissel white from Chicago Theological Seminary for holding her side up in it. But particularly the language that was coached to Roberts I mean he's bright man but obviously he was coached a lot and he used exactly the same formula. I have no quarrel with that aspect of privacy or something like that. What do you make of it what stuck out for you what do you assess. The circumstance I know this could go on the rest of the hour but I also want to typically point out University of Illinois press. As far as beginning of life in origin all published a book called A brief liberal Catholic defense of abortion some years ago didn't have a lot of the impact it seems to me and I think it's worth mentioning again Gary Wills reviewed it in

the Chicago papers but nothing no widespread impact and it goes into this whole history about Aquinas and and the quickening and the whole idea that. In Soul Man happened that much later date than is claimed. Now we have this fellow from Oklahoma I forget his name now claiming that there are brain waves at 18 days or something like that it's absolutely surreal. What's being I offered these days so I'd like to hear your response to some of that I guess I'll hang up and listen thank you. OK thanks a lot. Thank you. I guess your first point on universal health care. The people who need health care the most are the people who don't have it in this country and that's the poor because there's a direct correlation between poverty and bad health. And women of poor women. For them pregnancy is much riskier than for middle class.

Wealthy women are much more likely to have problems during the pregnancy difficulties with the childbirth low birth weight babies premature delivery and then care needed for these low birth weight infants after birth and that is why I absolutely believe there should be universal health care especially and targeted even more than our system does now who go to poor people our Medicaid system simply. Simply doesn't provide the care that poor people need especially prenatal care I mean one of the great scandals in this country the inability of poor women even when they're covered by Medicaid to access prenatal care of the doctor simply just won't provide it. Clinics that you know either can't or won't provide this very necessary part of health care. The John Roberts hearings. You know the man was very carefully coached. Talking in the in code certainly didn't make the mistake

that Robert Bork made saying there is no such thing as a right to privacy. But you know that the question that's open is OK now that he said there so that there is some kind of right to privacy we don't know what it really means because Justice Thomas said the same thing in his hearings he said there was a right to privacy and recency got on the court he hasn't found it anywhere and it doesn't seem like Justice Thomas thinks there ought to be a right to privacy even for even for contraception. At the other end of the scale we have Justice O'Connor who found a right to privacy that encompassed the right for a woman to make decisions about childbearing. And then somewhere in the middle is Justice Rehnquist. This is the seat that Roberts is taking and Rehnquist said in one of those dissents that there was a right to privacy that didn't compass birth control but it did not encompass abortion. So it's an open open issue where is Roberts going to come down on that spectrum. I I I can't predict it with Planned Parenthood because he refused to make a commitment came out and opposed the nomination. And it's really it's really

a crapshoot. Voting for this man for the Supreme Court and really not knowing what he thinks about any any particular issue with really quite revealing. He kept on saying I can't give opinions about cases that are going to come up in the court and yet he did on a number of issues that I have issues that are likely to come to the court he actually gave a pretty detailed opinion. But not about abortion or anything related to reproductive freedom. OK our numbers to call are 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 locally if you have a question for Alexander Sanger or toll free numbers 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5. Let's go to that 800 line right now Chicago you're on the air with Alexander Sanger. Yes. My comment is to do with the issue of informed consent. There are you know there's been a lot of research showing a link between abortion and breast cancer and even health effects of contraception. And so when it comes down to the point that a lot of women have been you know

sold more sions without being informed of the health consequences and if it goes into the area of parental notification as well where you know young children are being given contraception contraceptive you know pills and devices without really apparent consent in a in a parent would normally have some input into health consequences and things affecting the health of their children. And I just wonder if you can comment on and this seems to be you know the lack of informed consent regarding these things. Well I start out with. No one should be subject to any treatment or take any medicine unless they do give informed consent. And let's just talk about adults for them. Who up for whom have the intelligence and the ability to give informed consent. There are and I talk a whole chapter in my book about this talking about the impact and the health effects of contraception. And this is something that's still being

studied. There are a lot of open issues out there especially the relationship between when you're on hormonal contraception the relationship between that and your likelihood of contracting a sexually transmitted disease. I think we have to do a lot more study. I know that a Planned Parenthood in every patient is told if they go on hormonal contraception they also have to make sure they use condoms every time the other intercourse no matter who they're having intercourse with the husband or bit otherwise because of the risk of sexually transmitted diseases. But you're raising very serious issues I had. I have not seen any definitive studies I've seen contradictory studies on the whole breast cancer issue and abortion. The most reliable and unbiased ones I've seen come from Europe because in those countries they actually have a NAT national registry of people who have had abortions. And it's part of the. And they track every one of those countries

for everything that's wrong with them and they have not found a connection between abortion and breast cancer. Well you know I think that there is more. Certainly the studies ought to be done more done in this in this country. The issue of of course of minors is a very serious one. And do we do we permit any kind of medication going to. To anyone who is one of the under the age of 18. And without a parental consent and the the the controversial and public health issue you know you might think instinctively Oh of course not you got to have parents consent to that. And the countervailing the public health consequence of that is OK you're going to have more unprotected sex more unintended pregnancy as a result. With all the health consequences that of that flow from that. And what is better for the health of people who are minors making sure they get parental consent or making sure they don't get pregnant. And again a very serious issue and not people

who are very thoughtful can come down on either side of that. And I mean you know where I come down is it's better to have people not get pregnant especially young people because they're not suited them in most cases to be parents. And we'd like to prevent them having abortions that are not necessary for them to go through that type of procedure. There's a Web site abortion breast cancer. I think that org maybe but where you can actually there's a vast research in this question and I think person wants to know a little bit more about it they can maybe look look that up in there but it just seems to me that many people are put through this procedure without really aware you know these health cuts where the so important in anything with you know what you're doing what you can in itself into. No no no question about that. And I know that there is the risk counseling and information showing at the Planned Parenthood's I hope at other institutions as well. This issue has been raised and actually some states have even mandated that this

should happen when you go into a doctor's office to talk about it. I wanted to say that one of the previous the previous caller talked about the University of Illinois press. They also published the Selected Papers of markets. And so some of your readers might want to get some your listeners might want to get that volume also. OK sounds good. Thanks a lot for the call. Our number is 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 or if you're out of the 2 170 area code 800 2 2 2 9 4 5 5. Mr. SANGER You mentioned one thing one strategy in your book in your book that sort of made me sort of step back a little bit. You know the teen pregnancy can sometimes be a good reproductive strategy does not really go against our sort of societal thinking at this point in time. Well it goes himself I don't think it goes against my thinking as I just said. But yeah I was just I mean I wanted to sort of follow up because you just made that made that comment

that just to the previous caller in. Exactly. And the the point about teens is that is that teens like adults every productive strategies and they may be unconscious and they may not be thinking them through but teenagers you know by the by Mother Nature is really playing tricks with us. The age of mentor P. is now was 11 years old for the young girls. Even 10 years old and sometimes younger. Changes in diet and lifestyle. And maybe the environment of lead. For the ability of young girls to be able to menstruate and then get pregnant a lot earlier than they did in our grandparents time. And what do we do about this. And poor minority teens living in inner cities face real difficulties face because of the society. They face a lack of eligible man to mate with that there's a real

imbalance between eligible men who are willing to become fathers and want to become fathers able to come become fathers and the girls and the women. The fact that the life span is very short shortened abbreviated in the inner cities. But black women in the inner cities have about a 20 year or less life expectancy. So a young girl's mother is going to be around for a lot shorter period of time in her life. And then there's the you know the birth outcomes. Teenage girls in inner cities have the least chance of having a low birth weight baby if they give birth at age 16 and 17 then if they wait. This is the opposite for white girls and women living in suburbs where you're going to have the highest incidence of low birth weight babies giving birth as a teen and the declining incidence when you get into your 20s. These things all combine to giving birth to a healthier been babies of normal

birth weight. Having your parents around. Life expectancy issues all and having to have fewer men as you get older available all lead to an environment where. In the inner city and you're a minority you have a better chance of having a give birth to a healthy child and have a family around to care for it if you give birth earlier rather than later. And this is reproductive strategy in action. This is Mother Nature system in action. And the point being that we have our reproductive strategies based on our environment because everyone virtually everyone wants to be a parent give birth to healthy children and the timing of birth depends a lot upon your environment. Now we as a society may not like this answer. And my answer to that is this similar to what I told one of the previous callers. We have to change the environment in order to make teenagers still a burthen that means having a health care system that reaches the inner

cities so people are going to live longer and live healthier. And the poor people need this health care system especially they also need a better living environment. Jobs better education system. Think of that. That would enable dog mad especially to live longer live healthier and able couples to delay their childbearing when they're better able to bring up their children. OK it's 11:44 on focus 580 we have about 10 or 12 minutes left that we can take calls the numbers are 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 or 8 hundred to 2 2 9 4 5 5 Let's go to line 1 Urbana you're on the air. I'm calling back again with regard to teenagers and parental consent. Teenagers ask their parents for consent to have sex. They go ahead and do it. Some do. And from what I have read. It's teenager who gets birth control is more likely to have a parent involved in helping them

than a teenager who doesn't go to get birth control. Think about how scary it would be to go and get your first self examination and have somebody poke around in your private areas and ask private questions. If it's not something that a teenager who who has never made their own appointment for a doctor is going is it's not easy for them to do and I'm really opposed to parental notification or consent for access to birth control. OK let's let Mr. Sonner comment on that. I think it is incumbent on parents to have these conversations with their teenage daughters especially teenagers something also but especially their daughters. Beginning at a very early age you know to age 10 or 11 those young girls are likely to start menstruating that that's an opening to begin the conversation. Talk about human reproduction. Talk About Sex talk about abstinence

and also talk about honey if you're going to have sex. I want you to be prepared ahead of time and if you don't get to a Planned Parenthood get to your reproductive health clinic your county health department your private doctor whoever it is before you're going to start to have sex. I think parents should be the first sex educators of their children. And many alas are not equipped to do it but every every planned parent in your listening area has programs to enable parents how to do this and they'll teach you how to do it men. Hopefully that you know if every parent did this we wouldn't have this discussion about parental consent because teens would want to be talking to their mothers about it that at a time. OK. Let's go to line two stellar on the year with Alexander Sanger is good morning. Good morning. Referring back to a point you made about how girls are maturing so early these years and this is been shown to come from the use of sewing in the

form of baby. The soy as you are probably well aware is has has so many estrogenic compounds and that it's making girls mature much earlier and many boys are not developing their male apparatus well enough. And it is tending to make boys more passive and girls more assertive. That's interesting let's let Mr. Sonner comment on that. Yeah there's been a lot a lot of study on the issue of chemicals in the environment and the effect on the human reproductive system for boys and girls even. There's been studies about grandparents being exposed to some chemical and their daughter's inability to conceive or their son sending up with reproductive problems. There's a wonderful book called our stolen future

which goes into this which I recommend people reading and. I think that a lot more work needs to be done by our environmental studies and our universities looking at the effect on chemicals looking at the bad weather that leads to more boys or girls being born and the effect on their reproductive systems and I would encourage the citizens out there because it affects everyone. You can't avoid the chemicals that are in our food and in the things we drink that we need to know a lot more about it. In order to affect you know study the effect on our reproduction. OK thanks for the call I want to get to line four because we have someone on the cell phone from Clinton you're on the air. Yeah I do that equation about what is going on with come out about the reproductive strategy. You also made it almost makes it sound like poor inner city females have

a booklet that says get pregnant early while you've got a structure. OK. Well what they did we met because the Baron tried to bring it down to something and I think she will. I don't hold an increasing demand. All right well how would you know. OK thanks for the call. I think a lot of our reproductive strategies are instinctual I think you know the risk such a thing is human nature and I think we have a desire to reproduce I think that's part of our human nature it is instinctual and he sensed the instincts manifest themselves depending on the environment we're living in and it may be conscious and maybe unconscious. For for young people not so young people too. First of all get attracted to someone. I mean we we don't mate and have kids randomly we get attracted to someone and you know I've yet to meet the scientist or the poet who can explain the mysteries of human attraction I think I think it's a lot of it's unconscious and I think the same is true with the timing of

childbearing. And I think that there are things that women do see in the environment that that of course they see consciously. The fact that they're there that they're going to have shortened life spans there are fewer men around them. But I don't think women instinctively know they're going to give birth. I have a better birth outcome. If they give birth earlier rather than later or later rather than earlier I think that's maybe part of part of the instinct that's part of the human reproductive system. I think there are a lot of mysteries out there in human and other animal reproductive strategies and again the whole field of evolutionary biology is just beginning. Beginning to understand them. OK we have a few minutes left it's 11:50 we have a little over five minutes we could take calls at 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 or 8 hundred to 2 2 9 4 5 5 if you'd like to get in on the conversation let's go to line 1 and champagne. Right now you're on the air with Alexander saying good morning our access is a terribly interesting conversation. I just wanted to add since you've been so good about putting Planned Parenthood in their work I just wanted to add

the issue about comprehensive sexuality education which most of our schools are severely lacking when we talk about teens being able to make responsible choices. They don't have much information to make those choices from. And so educating the parents is a big thing but giving kids tools to work with in the schools is awful an issue and I know you're aware that a lot. It is of huge importance because of a lot of teens are not going to parent with them when they encounter peer pressure and when they're right on a date or you know up at a party and someone approaches them wants to get their romantically or sexually involved and so we have to equip our teenagers to deal with those situations. And I think comprehensive sex ed would involve not only information but also a lot of role playing. And I think the classes ought to be mixed boys and girls together and girls at all to understand where the boys are coming from and vice versa. And yet have a family and I think a

school should be doing this and if it's if the schools don't have the teachers equipped to do what I know every plan parent it's got staff that are able to come into a school and do it. And I think we have to take the blinders off and realize like it or not our young people are are our sexual beings. They're maturing much too early for our liking obviously in many many cases. And but that's the biological reality out there and I think we most parents want their kids to be protect. It gets. Be safe. I get to adulthood without having a disease or without being pregnant and I think that's what parents want and that's what I think the schools ought to be providing. Thank you very much. OK thanks for the call. One thing I wanted to ask before we ended here was that your views on genetic engineering I found that in that section very interesting and I wonder if you could just talk about that for a minute. Well I think we really ought to go slow on genetic engineering. There's a lot we don't know. I have real concerns that that we start trying to Where do I just some chromosome or

some gene that we're going to have on the attendant side effects the under rule of unintended consequences applies throughout science but especially dealing with the human genome. And I have a lot of sympathy with parents who are carriers of a genetic disease. And there's some evidence that the certain genes that we might be able to vary them somehow in a petri dish before we do artificial insemination and eliminate baby he will feel you know or you know maybe we're getting to other diseases as well but that we've got to go really slow because we might be affecting some other part of the human genome and I think we've got to be very very careful about it. I'm instinctively believe and the parent should make these choices that they're the ones who are going to be bringing up potentially disabled child or a child that's not going to live nearly as long as he or she otherwise might. But I think a little bit of humility

here and a lot of informed consent this gets back to what your earlier caller talked about a form consent. Now I think a lot of the risks and all the risks certainly need to be explained before we're deep into the Sound known. I just sort of made that made to notes to myself. Would you make a distinction between genetic science and genetic engineering. Genetic science good genetic engineering bad. What is the difference. How or how do you see the difference in those terms. Well I think when you're doing actual research into who you know what how a disease gets carried from one generation to another that I think we certainly ought to be doing that research and exploring that. And one of the interesting things is that usually it's the it's the male child that is the carrier and likely likely to end up with the Y chromosome diseases that are much more likely. And this raises interesting questions about sex selection abortion. If if you you think you're right if your child is going to be at risk for carrying a disease it's much more likely to be a

boy than a girl that's going to be the carrier. And a lot of us in our system in the society of worried about sex selection abortion be targeted and being targeted against girls or in fact for much of that point of view it's going to be targeted against boys which race is very I think interesting questions we all need to talk about. But I worry about doing things in a in a petri dish modifying the human genome even for the best of reasons because we're really we really don't know what the effect of on other parts of the human genome or are going to be. For the for the time being I don't think it should be outlawed I think we need to do this work. I know actually in Chicago last year the year before a woman with early Alzheimers. Get some you know genetic manipulation so that she could get get pregnant and die. I think that was that was a good thing she wanted to be a mother and and give birth to healthy children. But I think

we just need to be aware of the risks and genetic engineering is not a panacea for all that ails humanity. And you've sort of touched on this earlier but just sort of to wrap up here as we end our conversation what do you feel is the role of government in the reproductive strategy. Well I think the government ought to be certainly less involved than it is now in setting guidelines and and mandating decisions that human beings make about when and whether to reproduce. And the timing of reproduction I think government really should stay out of the hold to its decision making about birth control and abortion. But because. Especially poor people need birth control and abortion in order to maximize their ability to give birth to healthy children that we need to hash a national health care system that covers these procedures. Because women needed it at the time in their life when they're getting pregnant or giving birth they may have health issues themselves. They may be at risk

for giving birth to low birth weight babies. I think our government should try to alleviate this for especially for poor people because they're the ones who are most at risk for these conditions. And certainly providing prenatal care universal prenatal care is absolutely mandatory for our for our government to provide. And I would hope that one of your listeners and certainly whatever their beliefs about abortion and birth control they could get behind a program in Illinois to make sure that everyone who is pregnant gets access to prenatal care and postnatal care as well. OK Mr. Sanger thank you very much. Thank you. I appreciate the time. We've been talking this morning on this in this hour focus to Alexander Sanger. His book Beyond choice reproductive freedom in the 21st century Mr. Sanger will be in town tomorrow night he is the featured speaker for the Planned Parenthood of the central Illinois gala event celebrating 65 years of service. Again Mr. Sanger thank you very much I certainly appreciate your time this morning.