Letters to the Editor

Responding to the pro-abortion slogan "Letting Women Be Their Own Moral Agents"--a ploy to try to make abortion seem morally acceptable. Because abortion is "such an intensely personal decision," it should be permitted.

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Letter Number: 39 The theme at the recent pro-abortion rally was "Letting Women Be Their Own Moral Agents." Do these people seriously think that laws have the power to prevent someone from being their own moral agent? There are laws against murder, but that doesn't prevent a serial killer from being his own moral agent. Laws do not change morality. They just make sure that evil behavior has consequences for the wrongdoer. Human laws do not give people morality. Morality comes from within. And abortion advocates are the first to admit that some women have no moral restraint, and will move heaven and earth to abort their children. But when abortion is illegal, those women are the only ones to suffer the consequences. With abortion legal, ordinary women can be persuaded to abort. They then face the consequences. They suffer the injuries that once were reserved for those women who really wanted abortions. They are given the opportunity to be raped or left dead by their abortionists. What abortion advocates really want is not to be their own moral agents, because they already are. What they want is moral approval. And they can never get that as long as they promote amorality.
Letter Number: 40 The theme at the recent pro-abortion rally was "Letting Women Be Their Own Moral Agents." A look at some pro-choice writings gives you an idea of what abortion advocates consider being a "moral agent." A Woman's Book of Choices coaches women on how to report fake rapes, feign mental illness, threaten suicide, and pull other stunts to get an abortion. What kind of morality are they encouraging here? Pro-choice advocates have always encouraged women to be sneaky, conniving, dishonest, and selfish. Any reason for an abortion is good enough, and any amount of lying and histrionics to get it--preferably at government expense--is justified. How can a woman claim to be able to make sound moral decisions when she behaves like a spoiled two-year-old throwing a tantrum in a supermarket because mama won't buy her a lollipop? We are not going to cure society's ills by encouraging the female half of the population to lie and act like spoiled brats. If it would cramp their style too much to raise a child, let them give the baby to one of the hard-working, honest, responsible families that want to adopt.
Letter Number: 41 The theme at the recent pro-abortion rally was "Letting Women Be Their Own Moral Agents." This is just a ploy to try to make abortion seem morally acceptable. Abortion advocates admit that before abortion was legal, women who wanted abortions were able to circumvent the law. These women were still their own moral agents. They chose an immoral act that also happened to be illegal. Now when a woman has an abortion, she is doing something entirely legal, but just as immoral. Changing the law did not change the moral status of what she did. Obviously the law is powerless to make women stop being their own moral agents. But by using the term "moral agent," to describe the woman who aborts her child, abortion advocates dress abortion up. They know that the term "moral agent" makes a person seem to be acting on strong moral convictions. Just like any other advertising ploy, it doesn't encourage real thought. Ted Bundy and Jeffrey Dahmer, for example, were their own moral agents. That hardly makes them paragons of virtue. There is nothing virtuous about abortion. It is--at best--an act of despair, and at worst a cold-blooded execution carried out in malice for entirely selfish reasons. It is never an act of moral virtue. Its advocates know that. That's why they resort to the "moral agent" slogan. It's about time we saw through such a cheap trick.
Letter Number: 42 A number of pro-abortion legislators say, "The real issue isn't abortion, but allowing women to be their own moral agents. I trust women to make morally correct decisions." Well, some women can't be trusted. For example, some women can't be trusted not to beat their children, which is why we have laws against child abuse. If we could trust all women to make sound moral choices, women would be immune to all laws. In fact, if we could count on everyone to do the right thing, we wouldn't need laws at all. All human beings--men and women--are capable of making immoral decisions, especially in time of crisis. Laws are needed to protect other human beings from having those immoral decisions inflicted upon them. Nobody opposes laws against rape on the grounds that we should trust men to make their own moral choices about their sex lives. Some men can't be trusted, so we write laws to limit the damage they can do. It needs to be so with abortion. It would be nice if all women could be trusted not to kill their unborn children, but we have to write laws based on reality, not wishful thinking. The fact that so many women choose abortion proves we need laws against it.
Letter Number: 43 Pro-abortion legislators sometimes try to justify their view with, "The real issue isn't abortion, but allowing women to be their own moral agents. I trust women to make morally correct decisions." Every single law is meant to limit someone's legal choices. No laws can prevent people from making moral choices. Ted Bundy made the moral choice to murder; no law could prevent that. Laws against helping Jews did not stop Oskar Schindler from making the moral choice to rescue Jews from the Nazis. Legislative acts do not confer moral agency--we have that by virtue of being human. What laws do is protect the innocent from the amoral. The very fact that 1.5 million babies are killed by abortion every year shows that there is a desperate need for laws to protect their lives. Their mothers' morality is between them and their spiritual advisors.
Letter Number: 44 Legislators sometimes declare, "The real issue isn't abortion, but allowing women to be their own moral agents. I trust women to make morally correct decisions." Abortion is a "moral choice" in that killing--or not killing--a baby is a moral issue. It is not a "moral choice" in the sense of being right or virtuous. It's absurd to claim that one person can kill another in a moral or trustworthy manner. What jury in the land would acquit a hit man because he claims that he has a moral obligation to honor his contracts? Yet we buy into this idea that it is morally sound to have a live baby pulled apart so he won't cramp somebody else's style? Why is it only when someone is defending a morally repulsive act that they ask to be trusted? This is like a pedophile whining that people won't trust him to make morally sound choices about raping children. Obviously, some women can't be trusted to make morally correct decisions. If they could be trusted, they wouldn't be killing their children, would they?
Letter Number: 45 In Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the Supreme Court upheld abortion's legality on the grounds that it involved "one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe," et cetera ad nauseum. First, I question how much credibility we should give a Supreme Court that defends its decisions with this sort of mystical psycho-babble. Second, how far are we willing to go in letting people make such choices? Satanists, for example, believe that the strong should exploit the weak, and that they must practice human sacrifice. Nihilists believe that nothing has any meaning and that therefore any act is morally acceptable. And what about Charles Manson? He believed that all people who lived within the confines of ordinary society were "pigs" and should be killed. Where is the Supreme Court's respect for his "concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe"? The truth is, some people's concepts of existence, of meaning, and of the universe are evil and involve harming others. Abortion advocacy, as it embraces the chopping up of live babies for personal gain, is just one of many examples. Why is it the only one singled out for protection by the Supreme Court? If I were Charles Manson, I'd be using the Casey decision to get my conviction overturned.
Letter Number: 46 In Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the Supreme Court upheld abortion's legality on the grounds that it involved "one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe," et cetera ad nauseum. First, I question how much credibility we should give a Supreme Court that defends its decisions with this sort of mystical psycho-babble. Second, how far are we willing to go in letting people make such choices? There are animal rights activists who consider animals at least as important--if not more important--than people. One reason some feel this way is their belief that people harm the earth, while animals live in harmony. If one of these people saw a child chase a puppy into the street, and chose to swerve and hit the child to avoid hitting the puppy, would that decision be valid under Planned Parenthood v. Casey? After all, what right would the government have to tell the animal lover that she had to kill that innocent puppy? Her personal value system is that the child is a danger to the planet. Her personal value system tells her she did the right thing. Her conscience is clear. Yet we would throw her in jail. Of course, we would be right to throw her in jail. She can sincerely believe that the puppy is more valuable than the child, but she may not legally act on it. So, regardless of their sincerity, it is perfectly reasonable for us to tell abortion lovers that their pet project is illegal--that the life of an unborn child is more important than terminating an untimely or inconvenient pregnancy.
Letter Number: 47 The theme at the recent pro-abortion rally was "Letting Women Be Their Own Moral Agents." The overall claim was that since abortion is an "agonizing" choice, it is always a morally valid one. Pro-choice writer Daniel Callahan would disagree. He reminded readers that nobody should assume that "just because there is psychological anguish or ambivalence about abortion, there is moral seriousness present; they are not necessarily the same. Anguish and ambivalence can result from trying to decide what one really wants to do, fear of the procedure itself, worry about the reaction of others. Serious ethical reflection goes beyond those matters. It requires thinking carefully about the moral status of the fetus, and about the best way to live a life and to shape a set of moral values and ideals." After all, many decisions cause anguish, anxiety, and ambivalence. The decision to cheat on your income tax, have an affair, or back-stab a co-worker, for example, might all cause considerable anguish and anxiety. Does that make cheating on your taxes or mate morally valid? No. And it doesn't make abortion morally valid either.
Letter Number: 48 Some abortion supporters claim that legal abortion is a right because there are no absolute values. Therefore, they say, each woman should be able to make up her mind what value she places on her baby. Nobel Prize-winning author Albert Camus addressed this attitude in The Rebel. He pointed out, "In that we have no higher values to guide our behavior, our aim will be immediate efficacy. Since nothing is either true or false, good or bad, our guiding principle will be to demonstrate that we are the most efficient--in other words, the strongest. Then the world will no longer be divided into the just and the unjust, but into masters and slaves. Thus...murder has its privileged position." Camus would see past abortion enthusiasts' liberal posturing. What they are really saying is that because women are so much bigger and stronger than their children, they should be allowed to end their lives. If that argument is valid, then might really does make right, and love has no place in the world. And abortion-lovers are well on their way to building a society where the only rule is the rule of the jungle--kill or be killed. With women being smaller and less physically powerful than men, I wonder if these so-called "women's rights advocates" have carried this philosophy out to its logical conclusion. In any event, I hope they never forget that this is a world they chose for themselves.
Letter Number: 140 Pro-choicers who want pro-lifers to shut up and go away say, "The abortion decision should be between a woman, her family, and her doctor." First of all, civilized societies are based on citizens agreeing that there are some things people just shouldn't do. That's very different from butting in on a decision-making process. After all, laws against rape don't mean that panels of citizens decide which men should become rapists and which women they should rape! Second, these pro-choicers perpetuate the myth that doctors have anything to do with the abortion decision. Warren Hern, the most respected abortionist in America, described the real situation. "In many clinic settings, the patient does not meet the physician until she is undressed except for an examining gown. Some physicians even require, or clinics arrange, that the patient have her feet in the stirrups when the physician enters the room." How much do you think a woman is going to discuss with a man she meets when she is half-naked and spread-eagle in the stirrups? Last, I must point out that no family member has any legal rights regarding abortion. Teens routinely abort without their parents' knowledge, much less their consent. Many's the heartbroken father whose wife aborted his wanted and loved child over his tearful protests. Pro-choicers seem to consider this situation acceptable. I side with those who disagree.
Letter Number: 141 A radical pro-abortion feminist ranted, "The government has no right to tell a woman she must have a child." She must have seen some strange legislation the rest of us don't know about. I don't recall a law being passed--or even considered--requiring women to have children. Would it be something like the draft? Is this gal saying that women would have to register their wombs with the government at puberty? Then, perhaps, they would be rated according to race, health, socio-economic status, and so on. When the Census Bureau noted an imbalance, random women from a certain group would be selected and inseminated. Is this what she's talking about? When you take what she says seriously, you realize how ridiculous it is. Only kooks like Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger ever came close to proposing such a thing. Pro-lifers certainly haven't. Nobody is proposing congressional insemination squads. We are simply saying that once a woman is pregnant, she should not be allowed to kill her unborn child. There is a big difference between saying, "Do not destroy this new life you have conceived," and, "You must conceive and carry a child." If this abortion fanatic has trouble making this distinction, perhaps a refresher course in biology would help.
Letter Number: 411 Pro-choicers sometimes claim that because abortion is "such an intensely personal decision," it should be permitted. What exactly constitutes a "personal decision?" Mormons would like to practice polygamy, which is against the law. I've seen infatuated 12-year-olds who wanted to get married. After all, there is no minimum age for abortion. A 10-year-old can get an abortion without her parents even knowing about it. Why aren't pro-choicers fighting laws against polygamy and prepubescent marriage? Sexual practices are even more private, yet many are illegal. You may not legally have sex with a close relative, or a child, or an animal, or a dead body. I haven't seen pro-choicers defending the right to make the intensely personal decision to have sex with relatives, children, house pets, or corpses. Isn't this personal enough for them to be concerned? Obviously, it isn't the personal nature of abortion that makes it so special to abortion enthusiasts. My question is, what is it about abortion that they are so infatuated with? Is it the blood, the pain, the death? Or the money?

Letter Number: 39

The theme at the recent pro-abortion rally was "Letting Women Be Their Own Moral Agents."

Do these people seriously think that laws have the power to prevent someone from being their own moral agent?

There are laws against murder, but that doesn't prevent a serial killer from being his own moral agent. Laws do not change morality. They just make sure that evil behavior has consequences for the wrongdoer.

Human laws do not give people morality. Morality comes from within. And abortion advocates are the first to admit that some women have no moral restraint, and will move heaven and earth to abort their children. But when abortion is illegal, those women are the only ones to suffer the consequences. With abortion legal, ordinary women can be persuaded to abort. They then face the consequences. They suffer the injuries that once were reserved for those women who really wanted abortions. They are given the opportunity to be raped or left dead by their abortionists.

What abortion advocates really want is not to be their own moral agents, because they already are. What they want is moral approval. And they can never get that as long as they promote amorality.

Letter Number: 40

The theme at the recent pro-abortion rally was "Letting Women Be Their Own Moral Agents."

A look at some pro-choice writings gives you an idea of what abortion advocates consider being a "moral agent."

A Woman's Book of Choices coaches women on how to report fake rapes, feign mental illness, threaten suicide, and pull other stunts to get an abortion. What kind of morality are they encouraging here?

Pro-choice advocates have always encouraged women to be sneaky, conniving, dishonest, and selfish. Any reason for an abortion is good enough, and any amount of lying and histrionics to get it--preferably at government expense--is justified.

How can a woman claim to be able to make sound moral decisions when she behaves like a spoiled two-year-old throwing a tantrum in a supermarket because mama won't buy her a lollipop?

We are not going to cure society's ills by encouraging the female half of the population to lie and act like spoiled brats. If it would cramp their style too much to raise a child, let them give the baby to one of the hard-working, honest, responsible families that want to adopt.

Letter Number: 41

The theme at the recent pro-abortion rally was "Letting Women Be Their Own Moral Agents."

This is just a ploy to try to make abortion seem morally acceptable.

Abortion advocates admit that before abortion was legal, women who wanted abortions were able to circumvent the law. These women were still their own moral agents. They chose an immoral act that also happened to be illegal.

Now when a woman has an abortion, she is doing something entirely legal, but just as immoral. Changing the law did not change the moral status of what she did.

Obviously the law is powerless to make women stop being their own moral agents. But by using the term "moral agent," to describe the woman who aborts her child, abortion advocates dress abortion up. They know that the term "moral agent" makes a person seem to be acting on strong moral convictions. Just like any other advertising ploy, it doesn't encourage real thought. Ted Bundy and Jeffrey Dahmer, for example, were their own moral agents. That hardly makes them paragons of virtue.

There is nothing virtuous about abortion. It is--at best--an act of despair, and at worst a cold-blooded execution carried out in malice for entirely selfish reasons. It is never an act of moral virtue.

Its advocates know that. That's why they resort to the "moral agent" slogan. It's about time we saw through such a cheap trick.

Letter Number: 42

A number of pro-abortion legislators say, "The real issue isn't abortion, but allowing women to be their own moral agents. I trust women to make morally correct decisions."

Well, some women can't be trusted. For example, some women can't be trusted not to beat their children, which is why we have laws against child abuse. If we could trust all women to make sound moral choices, women would be immune to all laws. In fact, if we could count on everyone to do the right thing, we wouldn't need laws at all. All human beings--men and women--are capable of making immoral decisions, especially in time of crisis. Laws are needed to protect other human beings from having those immoral decisions inflicted upon them.

Nobody opposes laws against rape on the grounds that we should trust men to make their own moral choices about their sex lives. Some men can't be trusted, so we write laws to limit the damage they can do.

It needs to be so with abortion. It would be nice if all women could be trusted not to kill their unborn children, but we have to write laws based on reality, not wishful thinking. The fact that so many women choose abortion proves we need laws against it.

Letter Number: 43

Pro-abortion legislators sometimes try to justify their view with, "The real issue isn't abortion, but allowing women to be their own moral agents. I trust women to make morally correct decisions."

Every single law is meant to limit someone's legal choices. No laws can prevent people from making moral choices. Ted Bundy made the moral choice to murder; no law could prevent that. Laws against helping Jews did not stop Oskar Schindler from making the moral choice to rescue Jews from the Nazis. Legislative acts do not confer moral agency--we have that by virtue of being human.

What laws do is protect the innocent from the amoral. The very fact that 1.5 million babies are killed by abortion every year shows that there is a desperate need for laws to protect their lives.

Their mothers' morality is between them and their spiritual advisors.

Letter Number: 44

Legislators sometimes declare, "The real issue isn't abortion, but allowing women to be their own moral agents. I trust women to make morally correct decisions."

Abortion is a "moral choice" in that killing--or not killing--a baby is a moral issue. It is not a "moral choice" in the sense of being right or virtuous. It's absurd to claim that one person can kill another in a moral or trustworthy manner. What jury in the land would acquit a hit man because he claims that he has a moral obligation to honor his contracts? Yet we buy into this idea that it is morally sound to have a live baby pulled apart so he won't cramp somebody else's style?

Why is it only when someone is defending a morally repulsive act that they ask to be trusted? This is like a pedophile whining that people won't trust him to make morally sound choices about raping children. Obviously, some women can't be trusted to make morally correct decisions. If they could be trusted, they wouldn't be killing their children, would they?

Letter Number: 45

In Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the Supreme Court upheld abortion's legality on the grounds that it involved "one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe," et cetera ad nauseum. First, I question how much credibility we should give a Supreme Court that defends its decisions with this sort of mystical psycho-babble.

Second, how far are we willing to go in letting people make such choices?

Satanists, for example, believe that the strong should exploit the weak, and that they must practice human sacrifice. Nihilists believe that nothing has any meaning and that therefore any act is morally acceptable.

And what about Charles Manson? He believed that all people who lived within the confines of ordinary society were "pigs" and should be killed. Where is the Supreme Court's respect for his "concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe"?

The truth is, some people's concepts of existence, of meaning, and of the universe are evil and involve harming others. Abortion advocacy, as it embraces the chopping up of live babies for personal gain, is just one of many examples. Why is it the only one singled out for protection by the Supreme Court?

If I were Charles Manson, I'd be using the Casey decision to get my conviction overturned.

Letter Number: 46

Second, how far are we willing to go in letting people make such choices?

There are animal rights activists who consider animals at least as important--if not more important--than people. One reason some feel this way is their belief that people harm the earth, while animals live in harmony.

If one of these people saw a child chase a puppy into the street, and chose to swerve and hit the child to avoid hitting the puppy, would that decision be valid under Planned Parenthood v. Casey? After all, what right would the government have to tell the animal lover that she had to kill that innocent puppy? Her personal value system is that the child is a danger to the planet. Her personal value system tells her she did the right thing. Her conscience is clear. Yet we would throw her in jail.

Of course, we would be right to throw her in jail. She can sincerely believe that the puppy is more valuable than the child, but she may not legally act on it.

So, regardless of their sincerity, it is perfectly reasonable for us to tell abortion lovers that their pet project is illegal--that the life of an unborn child is more important than terminating an untimely or inconvenient pregnancy.

Letter Number: 47

The theme at the recent pro-abortion rally was "Letting Women Be Their Own Moral Agents."

The overall claim was that since abortion is an "agonizing" choice, it is always a morally valid one.

Pro-choice writer Daniel Callahan would disagree. He reminded readers that nobody should assume that "just because there is psychological anguish or ambivalence about abortion, there is moral seriousness present; they are not necessarily the same. Anguish and ambivalence can result from trying to decide what one really wants to do, fear of the procedure itself, worry about the reaction of others. Serious ethical reflection goes beyond those matters. It requires thinking carefully about the moral status of the fetus, and about the best way to live a life and to shape a set of moral values and ideals."

After all, many decisions cause anguish, anxiety, and ambivalence. The decision to cheat on your income tax, have an affair, or back-stab a co-worker, for example, might all cause considerable anguish and anxiety. Does that make cheating on your taxes or mate morally valid? No. And it doesn't make abortion morally valid either.

Letter Number: 48

Some abortion supporters claim that legal abortion is a right because there are no absolute values. Therefore, they say, each woman should be able to make up her mind what value she places on her baby.

Nobel Prize-winning author Albert Camus addressed this attitude in The Rebel. He pointed out, "In that we have no higher values to guide our behavior, our aim will be immediate efficacy. Since nothing is either true or false, good or bad, our guiding principle will be to demonstrate that we are the most efficient--in other words, the strongest. Then the world will no longer be divided into the just and the unjust, but into masters and slaves. Thus...murder has its privileged position."

Camus would see past abortion enthusiasts' liberal posturing. What they are really saying is that because women are so much bigger and stronger than their children, they should be allowed to end their lives.

If that argument is valid, then might really does make right, and love has no place in the world. And abortion-lovers are well on their way to building a society where the only rule is the rule of the jungle--kill or be killed. With women being smaller and less physically powerful than men, I wonder if these so-called "women's rights advocates" have carried this philosophy out to its logical conclusion. In any event, I hope they never forget that this is a world they chose for themselves.

Letter Number: 140

Pro-choicers who want pro-lifers to shut up and go away say, "The abortion decision should be between a woman, her family, and her doctor."

First of all, civilized societies are based on citizens agreeing that there are some things people just shouldn't do. That's very different from butting in on a decision-making process. After all, laws against rape don't mean that panels of citizens decide which men should become rapists and which women they should rape!

Second, these pro-choicers perpetuate the myth that doctors have anything to do with the abortion decision. Warren Hern, the most respected abortionist in America, described the real situation. "In many clinic settings, the patient does not meet the physician until she is undressed except for an examining gown. Some physicians even require, or clinics arrange, that the patient have her feet in the stirrups when the physician enters the room." How much do you think a woman is going to discuss with a man she meets when she is half-naked and spread-eagle in the stirrups?

Last, I must point out that no family member has any legal rights regarding abortion. Teens routinely abort without their parents' knowledge, much less their consent. Many's the heartbroken father whose wife aborted his wanted and loved child over his tearful protests.

Pro-choicers seem to consider this situation acceptable. I side with those who disagree.

Letter Number: 141

A radical pro-abortion feminist ranted, "The government has no right to tell a woman she must have a child."

She must have seen some strange legislation the rest of us don't know about. I don't recall a law being passed--or even considered--requiring women to have children.

Would it be something like the draft? Is this gal saying that women would have to register their wombs with the government at puberty? Then, perhaps, they would be rated according to race, health, socio-economic status, and so on. When the Census Bureau noted an imbalance, random women from a certain group would be selected and inseminated. Is this what she's talking about?

When you take what she says seriously, you realize how ridiculous it is. Only kooks like Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger ever came close to proposing such a thing. Pro-lifers certainly haven't. Nobody is proposing congressional insemination squads.

We are simply saying that once a woman is pregnant, she should not be allowed to kill her unborn child. There is a big difference between saying, "Do not destroy this new life you have conceived," and, "You must conceive and carry a child."

If this abortion fanatic has trouble making this distinction, perhaps a refresher course in biology would help.

Letter Number: 411

Pro-choicers sometimes claim that because abortion is "such an intensely personal decision," it should be permitted.

What exactly constitutes a "personal decision?"

Mormons would like to practice polygamy, which is against the law. I've seen infatuated 12-year-olds who wanted to get married. After all, there is no minimum age for abortion. A 10-year-old can get an abortion without her parents even knowing about it. Why aren't pro-choicers fighting laws against polygamy and prepubescent marriage?

Sexual practices are even more private, yet many are illegal. You may not legally have sex with a close relative, or a child, or an animal, or a dead body. I haven't seen pro-choicers defending the right to make the intensely personal decision to have sex with relatives, children, house pets, or corpses. Isn't this personal enough for them to be concerned?

Obviously, it isn't the personal nature of abortion that makes it so special to abortion enthusiasts. My question is, what is it about abortion that they are so infatuated with? Is it the blood, the pain, the death? Or the money?