Banner Graphic, Volume 16, Number 140, Greencastle, Putnam County, 24 January 1986 — Page 3
lifestyle
Dear Abby Can artificial insemination yield well-adjusted child?
DEAR ABBY: Now I’ve seen everything. “Still Shaking,” the retired parents of a 35-year-old “lovely, unmarried, highly respected, professional woman,” were called by their daughter to inform them that she is pregnant and thrilled. It seems that she has always wanted a child, and since her biological clock was running out and she had no man in her life, she had herself artificially inseminated! The parents were stunned and asked you what they should tell people. Your advice, “Tell them the truth,” was correct. But what does the unmarried daughter tell her child when confronted with the question: “Who is my father?” Couples and/or singles who are having children by artificial insemination, surrogate parenting and the like give little consideration to the psychological effect of these procedures on the offspring so produced. “Yes, dear, you were conceived when I was impregnated with a turkey baster with the sperm of some unknown guy whom I never met.” Reassuring, isn’t it? JOSEPH H. DAVIS, M.D., PEDIATRICIAN, MENLO PARK, CALIF. DEAR DR. DAVIS: Reassuring or not, children conceived by sperm bank fathers, surrogate mothers and any way other than the conventional method should be told the truth about how they came into the world. Embarrassing and complicated as it may seem to adults concerned only with morals, ethics and what-will-the-neighbors-think, the simple truth told with patience, love and caring will be sufficient for the moment, and eventually understood and accepted. * * * DEAR ABBY: I, too, am shaking after reading that letter about the single woman having artificial insemination because she wanted a baby and didn’t have a man in her life. You seemed to think it was perfectly all right. Why didn’t you speak out against that stupid, selfish woman’s bringing a child into a oneparent home? That woman has no more right to have a baby than an
Calendar of events Monday Chapter CB of PEO will meet at 8 p.m. Monday, Jan. 27, at the home of Mrs. Ruth van Zwoll. Mrs. Dorothy Sawyer will assist. Members are reminded to bring items for a silent auction. Boston Club will meet at 7:30 p.m. Monday, Jan. 27, with Miriam Durham. The program, “A visit to Russia,” will be presented by Betty Aker. The Putnam County Council on Aging executive board will hold its monthly meeting at 7 p.m. Monday, Jan. 27, at the Senior Center. Members should note the meeting date change from the third Monday to the fourth Monday. A new personnel policy will be voted on. The Putnam County Democratic Women’s Club will meet at 7:30 p.m. on Monday, Jan. 27, at the home of LaConda Pilkin, 864 N. Jackson St., Greencastle. The meeting will include installation of officers and renewal of memberships. Those attending are asked to bring items for the food pantry. More information is available by calling 653-5529 or 653-6595.
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unmarried 14-year-old! Every child deserves a mother and a father. Thanks to all these hot-pants teen-agers, we already have enough one-parent families without your approving artificial insemination for unmarried women whose biological clocks are running out. If a single woman wants something to love and thinks motherhood would be fun, tell her to get a pet! DISGUSTED IN HORNELL, N.Y. DEAR DISGUSTED: Twoparent homes are, of course, ideal when both parents are ideal parents, but many welladjusted children have been reared in one-parent homes. So, who am I to say that an unmarried woman (or an unmarried man, for that matter) has no right to be a parent? And by the way, who are you to make that judgment? * * * DEAR ABBY: I’ve been thinking about the letter signed “Still Shaking”—the parents of a 35-year-old unmarried, professional woman who wanted a baby, so she had herself artificially inseminated. If I were the parents, I wouldn’t buy that story unless I saw the doctor’s records or had some kind of proof that artificial insemination actually took place. SKEPTICAL IN MURPHYSBORO, ILL. * * * CONFIDENTIAL TO KNEEDEEP IN DEBT IN STUDIO CITY, CALIF.: Make one more purchase—buy yourself a scissors. Then cut up your credit cards. ,
Auto industry listens to J.D. Power
Car buyers in six basic categories
c. 1986 N.Y. Times News Service WESTLAKE VILLAGE, Calif. - Like to tinker with cars? If so, you are four times more likely to buy a pickup truck than someone who never looks under the hood. Drive only because you have to? That makes you almost twice as likely to own an imported car than someone who regards a twisting road as a driving challenge. These insights are part of what makes J.D. Power & Associates one of the bestknown voices in automotive research. As an independent market research firm, the Power organization has attracted attention both because of its concentration on the automotive market and because of its rankings on new-car quality and consumer satisfaction with the auto companies. Its insights into car-buying habits are drawn from a study on the subject that looks into hundreds of personality quirks. Unlike most auto research, which remains largely in the hands of the companies that have paid for it, Power’s conclusions are published in a monthly newsletter, the Power Report on Automotive Marketing, which is widely quoted. J. David Power 111 has been developing methods to take the pulse of the autobuying public since 1959, when he went to
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work for the Ford Motor Co. An occasional flat “A” sound in his speech betrays his Worcester, Mass., origins, but he has been operating his own company in California since 1968. One of the company’s main undertakings is its annual consumer satisfaction survey, which is intended to determine how well car buyers like their vehicles about a year after their purchase, as well as the dealer who sold it to them. About 20,000 people filled out the long mailed form for the most recent survey, providing detailed information on their car’s initial condition, problems after delivery and how well the dealer handled any repairs. The 1985 survey rated Mercedes-Benz and Subaru at the top of the heap, with American Motors and Peugeot at the bottom. Imports dominated the higher rankings, with Ford’s Lincoln the only domestic nameplate to make it into the top 10. The survey also disclosed that buyers of large, older-design American cars, such as the Chevrolet Caprice and Ford Crown Victoria, are the most satisfied with their purchases, despite the generally low rank of the domestic manufacturers, and that buyers of small, sporty cars are the least
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satisfied. According to Power, the results of the survey underscore a broader trend in the automobile business: Younger car buyers tend to be more demanding than older ones. The buyers of traditional American cars are generally older than those who prefer small, sporty ones. “An older guy who is comparing a new car to his 76 Buick isn’t that hard to satisfy,” Power noted. “But a younger person who has had a Toyota or Honda is a much tougher customer.” Indeed, earlier research, uncontested by Detroit, showed the median age of a buyer of a Japanese car was 35 years, compared with 46 years for the buyer of a domestic product. This tougher buying attitude, coupled with the still-growing number of manufacturers selling cars in this country, is changing the automobile industry into one driven more by consumer desires than by the plans of General Motors, Ford and Chrysler. “We’re about to see the most intensely competitive period the auto industry has had in 50 years,” Power said. “With all. those companies jockeying for position,
January 24,1966, The Putnam County Banner Graphic
you are going to see a lot more segments and a lot more entries in each segment.” Segments, in auto parlance, are product categories, such as small economy cars, large luxury cars and sports cars. A survey that the company did early in 1965 found that car buyers fall into six basic categories: auto-philes, who know a lot about cars and like to work on them; sensible-centrists, who prize practicality; comfort-seekers, who tend to favor options and luxury ; auto-cynics, who view cars as appliances; necessity-drivers, who wish there was another way to get around, and auto-phobes, who care most about safety. According to the survey, the groups vary demographically: The sensible-centrists have the lowest family income, at $34,900 a year, while the comfort-seekers have the highest, $52,100. Perhaps more interesting to product planners, the different groups were found to have markedly different tastes in their choice of car models and options. Thus, according to the survey, an autophile would be four times more likely to buy a pickup truck than a comfort-seeker would be. And the necessity-driver would be almost twice as likely to drive an import as an auto-phile.
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