In response to my simple question to Kevin Madden about his position on abortion, Wade J. Williams and several other folks on The Citizen boards immediately side-stepped my question and challenged me on the Iraq war, the hypocrisy of Republicans, and separation of church and state.

Typical. No one even attempted to reconcile how one can be pro-choice and avowedly Catholic. It is possible to make an argument, although I believe it doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. But instead my many interlocutors chose a swift and deft avoidance and laid the onus on me to reconcile my pro-life beliefs with supposedly being pro-war, anti-veteran, and pro-theocracy.

So let me, unlike my esteemed colleagues, address some of these issues directly.

First, only an idiot would be against helping veterans with their medical care, so to pretend that you’re some sort of hero by advocating that stance is the definition of empty rhetoric.

I am no expert on the matter, but the VA is a huge bureaucracy whose every failing can hardly be blamed on Bush. If anything, the failure of the VA and of government-administered health care is not an indictment of Bush, but an indictment of the notion that government ought to be in the business of running healthcare at all.

Should the government, as the employer of military personnel, pay for veteran healthcare? Definitely. Should it require veterans to use VA- or Medicare-approved facilities only? Perhaps not if it’s not working.

But let’s not be too quick to accept the oh-so-easy and convenient excuse of blaming Bush for the failure of a bureaucracy that is in all likelihood run by Democrat-leaning government employees.

Regarding the Iraq war, I admit I thought it was the right thing to do given the altered landscape after 9/11. We could no longer afford the risk presented by one such as Saddam Hussein, who brazenly and persistently violated international law and funded terrorism.

But I do regret horribly the loss of innocent life, just as the loss of innocent life in WWII or WWI or any war is regrettable. But let’s be a little more morally clear: the unintended loss of life that occurs in warfare is not the same as intentional murder of unborn life in the womb.

The former is an unintended and tragic result of an action taken to accomplish a greater good: the removal of a hostile and dangerous regime. The latter is a conscious, deliberate elimination of an innocent human life for a variety of reasons that very rarely have anything to do with preserving the actual health of the mother.

My point is that if you’re going to rail against Bush for Iraq and the treatment of veterans, which are understandable positions, then you also ought to make sure you’re advocating the protection and welfare of all innocent parties, including unborn children.

If being against aborting unborn children is strictly a religious position and therefore should be banished from public discourse, then I guess we need to denounce those horrible abolitionists and civil rights activists who were also motivated by religion. While we’re at it, let’s just ban religion, period!

I await the arguments, and am tired of the dodge.

Trey Hoffman

Peachtree City, Ga.

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