The "rusty" was to stress the point, John. I didn't, however, mention the all too often questionable sanitary practices of the back-street abortionist. Sorry if you found the emphasis objectionable.

Regarding pregnancy as a punishment for sin:   in a rather heated discussion some time ago, I was informed by a couple of people of the fundamentalist Christian right persuasion that if a woman (we were speaking of teen-agers at the moment) got pregnant by messing around in the back seat of her boy friend's Chevy, and for whateve reason had to go ahead and have the baby, then whatever social disgrace she faced, or however this messed up her life plans (preventing her from going to college, say), that was no more than she deserved for committing the sin of having sex without the sanction of the church. Their equation of having a child as punishment for sin was clear. When I argued that the child may very well suffer as a result, one of them made some remark about the sins of the father (or mother) being visited upon the child.

Like I said, they didn't give a damn about "collateral damage."

Don Firth