Dunsmuir on Abortion

Juanita Dunsmuir quickly changed the complexion of the debate, as a boxing match would change if one combatant pulled off the gloves and began swinging fists armed with brass knuckles. Dunsmuir was not reacting emotionally, Stevie knew. Her tack of biting, rhetorical questions was carefully calculated to solicit support for her liberal position.

"Ladies and gentlemen, the Ms. X Senator Bellardi introduced to you does not exist. No one in North California goes by such an impersonal name. But there are numbers of young women in our state named Jenny and Sarah and Jessica and Patty and Elizabeth. They are your coworkers, your neighbors, your nieces, and your daughters. These girls are troubled, frightened, and embarrassed. They have one thing in common: unplanned or unwanted pregnancy."

"Sixteen-year-old Jenny over in Windsor was talked into a night of intimacy by her twenty-year-old boyfriend. When Jenny confessed that she was pregnant, her boyfriend disappeared and her alcoholic mother threw her out of the house. Feeling abandoned and scared about the future, she hastily sought an abortion, a decision she now regrets."