Letters to the Editor

Abortion proponents have defended abortion on the grounds that nobody knows when life begins.

That isn't true--anybody capable of rational thought knows that each individual's life begins at conception. But even if we didn't know for sure, does that mean we can just charge ahead with lethal instruments?

If you were driving down the road and saw a heap of clothing in the street, would you just run over it? Or would you stop to make sure it wasn't a person before you ran over it? It's fairly obvious that nobody but a homicidal maniac would run over anything that might be a person.

Well, it is far more likely that the fetus is a person than that a bundle on the road is a person.

Shouldn't we give our children at least as much consideration as we'd give a pile of rags?

Abortion supporters explain their position by saying, "No one knows when life begins." They're lying, of course. We've known for decades that the life of each individual begins at conception. But just for argument's sake, I'll let this lie stand.

When we are in doubt, do we err on the side of life or death?

A mine shaft collapses. We are not sure if any miners survived. Do we write them off on the grounds that a rescue is expensive and dangerous? Or do we, on the chance that there may be living human beings in that mine, proceed with the rescue?

A hunter sees movement in the woods. It's probably a deer. It might be another hunter. Should he shoot anyway, since he's not sure if he'd be taking a human life or not?

A child is found floating in a pond. He may already be dead. Or CPR may save him. Do we ignore him and continue fishing, or do we try to save him?

You can probably think of a dozen examples, without even trying, of situations where we routinely err on the side of life. When there is any doubt that what we are proposing may cost human lives, we assume that there are lives at stake, and act accordingly.

Since there is doubt, shouldn't we restrain abortionists until they can prove they aren't killing children? It's the only reasonable, consistent thing to do.

Abortion fanatics try to defend abortion by claiming, "No one knows when life begins."

They say abortion just eliminates the "potential," but does not end a life.

The truth is that abortions are performed precisely because the baby is alive, but is not wanted. If there was not a living entity involved, there would be no argument, because there would be no abortion. The bottom line is, if it ain't a baby, you ain't pregnant.

Pro-abortion people sometimes claim, "No one knows when life begins."

Not true. Only abortion fanatics seem to have any confusion on that topic. Everyone else learned in Biology 101 that life begins at conception.

But let's just assume that these pro-abortion people are right, and we don't know when life begins. If there is any doubt, should we take any chances? Shouldn't we err on the side of life? After all, what jury would say, "We don't really know if the defendant is guilty or not, so let's just go ahead and execute him?"

Abortion advocates have claimed, "The Supreme Court left it up to each individual woman to decide when life begins."

Suppose the Supreme Court had declared, "Nobody knows the exact value of pi." Would that change reality? Would some circles have a circumference seven times their diameter, and other circles have a circumference two times their diameter? Would abortion supporters claim that each contractor, architect, and engineer should decide what pi equals? Of course not! All of our buildings would fall down, our airplanes would crash, and our bridges would collapse. Courts cannot change reality.

A society cannot last long if it lets individual members make up reality. Any psychotic drug addict would be able to decide that his neighbors were space aliens and kill them. A mentally disturbed woman could think her neighbor's children were really hers and kidnap them. An arsonist could decide that buildings look best when they are on fire, and burn down an entire city. And everyone else would be obliged to respect these new "realities."

Since when is one person's right to legal protection based on what somebody else thinks about him or her? We base our laws on reality that virtually everyone can recognize: driving drunk is dangerous, setting houses on fire is wrong, and people who are a danger to themselves or others cannot be allowed to just do as they please.

Some people argue that abortion must be legal. They say, "The decision on when life begins must be left to the individual woman."

If a pro-life woman and a pro-choice woman became pregnant at the same time, they will obviously have different perceptions of the unborn entities in their bodies. The pro-life woman considers both entities to be babies. The pro-choice woman considers both entities to be formless and worthless blobs.

Obviously only one of them can be right.

Shouldn't we find out which one is right before we act?

A pro-abortion spokeswoman went ballistic yesterday in the Senate hearings when a senator referred to the unborn as a "baby." The spokeswoman insists that a fetus is something other than a human child.

I have a suggestion for this abortion lover. She and the senator can come to the Senate with their evidence. The senator can bring real-time ultrasound tapes, fetal models, and photos, and can present exactly what a fetus is and what a fetus can do. Then the pro-abortion spokeswoman can come in with whatever evidence she has that the fetus is not a child (whatever that could possibly be). Then the people can decide if the fetus is a baby or an undifferentiated cell mass.

Of course, the pro-abortion spokeswoman won't go for this, because she knows the senator is right. She just doesn't like it, and wants to impose her dislike of reality on the rest of us.

Love of unreality belongs in opium dens, not the Senate.

Abortion enthusiasts often go ballistic when pro-lifers refer to the unborn as a "baby."

Listen to how pro-choicers speak about a fetus they don't intend to kill. They don't say, "How is the product of conception doing?" They don't say, "I felt the fetus move yesterday." They don't say, "The potential life has the hiccups." If they intend to let it live, they use the dreaded four-letter word: baby. If they intend to kill it, they call it something else.

Wonder why?

Pro-choicers sometimes argue, "When will anti-choicers realize that abortion involves a woman, her family, and her doctor? There is no baby--just the potential."

If there is no baby before birth, where does the baby come from? After all, nothing is created at birth.

Where does the baby come from? Something came out of the uterus during the birthing process. Did it start out as primordial glop, the generic "pregnancy tissue," and somehow get formed into a baby by passing through the birth canal?

Isn't it strange how these sophisticated abortion-rights advocates are the only people over the age of 12 who can't answer the simple question, "where do babies come from?"

Abortion enthusiasts sometimes go ballistic when pro-lifers refer to the unborn as a "baby." They insist that a fetus is something other than a human child.

Why don't they tell some woman who's just had a miscarriage that she didn't lose a baby?

A pro-abortion spokeswoman recently said, "Everyone recognizes that an acorn is not a tree, and an egg is not a chicken. Pro-lifers need to learn to tell the difference between a developing potential human and a living person."

Does she really think most people can't tell the difference between picking an acorn out of the dirt and pulling the arms, legs, and head off a baby? Does she really think some woman who had suffered a miscarriage would forget her grief if someone patted her on the head and gave her an acorn? I can understand that the spokeswoman's grasp of modern science may be limited, and that she is unable to recognize a human baby. But we don't base public policy on the beliefs of the Flat Earth Society. Modern science proves beyond a doubt that a new person, with unique physical traits and a unique personality, exists from the moment of conception. This pro-abortion spokeswoman can cling to her bizarre notion that a baby which didn't exist moments before unexplicably materializes at birth, but the rest of us know better. I find it so interesting that the same people who say that no one knows when life begins also say the legal standard should be that it begin at birth. The irony is, birth is one moment we know for absolute certain that life doesn't begin.

The fact is that many years before Roe v. Wade, the medical community forever established the fact that life begins at conception. And while abortion defenders resort to all manner of verbal and logical gymnastics to claim otherwise, any non-comatose six-year-old can look at a picture of a fetus and tell you it's a baby. I suggest we write laws based on scientific reality, not the intellectual limitations of those people who defend legalized abortion.

A pro-abortion spokeswoman recently said, "Everyone recognizes that an acorn is not a tree, and an egg is not a chicken. Pro-lifers need to learn to tell the difference between a developing potential human and a living person."

I'm going to make the wild assumption that this pro-abortion spokeswoman is smart enough to know that when humans reproduce, they produce their own kind. That means that every pregnant human uterus contains a developing human. Not a cow or a tree or a chicken. A human being. Even if she is able somehow to understand that this is a human being, she wants to be able to kill him or her anyway on the grounds that he or she is developing. I challenge her to show me someone who isn't. Our bodies change--develop, if you will--almost until the day we die. If we aren't going to consider a person fully human until she's stopped developing, then the earliest we are going to be able to say life begins is at senility.

A baby is a baby. If we're going to kill babies for our own convenience, let's at least have the guts to admit it.