Wednesday, July 25, 2001

It's been about 10 years now since I wrote a letter in response to an accusation in a local paper that pro-choice individuals were baby-killers. At that time I received quite a few extremely frightening phone calls from pro-life individuals; hence my request to have my name withheld from my letter. Call me a coward and I'll wear the tag because those people scared me.

At that time, as today, I simply wanted an answer from the people who think we are baby killers as to what they would do if their daughter were raped and impregnated.

Yes, some people know how to get pregnant, but some aren't asked if they want to beforehand. If this happened to my daughter, I would not blink an eye. She would be at the doctor's office.

Or what about the family with six children who are not to use birth control for religious reasons and are surprised with number seven? It infuriates me that people can be so narrow-minded, and doubly so when it is a man doing the accusing.

I am proud to call myself a Christian and as such I agonize with any woman who must make the decision to terminate a pregnancy. No, I don't believe abortion should be used as a method of birth control, but I'll bet that 9.5 out of 10 women who choose abortion do so as a last resort, not simply for convenience's sake.

The arguments for and against abortion will probably never end. Hopefully we can add a little compassion to the mix as well as all the rhetoric.

Name withheld by request

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