It’s that time of year again. January marks the anniversary of our Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision and all of the radical pro-lifers crawl out of the woodwork. No doubt, the vacancy of a position in our Supreme Court is fueling this fire even more.

To Trey Hoffman, author of the letter depicting Roe v. Wade as a “weak as a willow” argument, I would like to share with Mr. Hoffman and all the other readers some real facts regarding Roe v. Wade.

The only “emotional” stance on Roe v. Wade is yours, Mr. Hoffman. In your letter to the editor, you are quick to state that any dissenting opinion certainly must not be intellectual, or legalistic.

Let me remind you that Roe v. Wade is a decision that was made by the highest court in our country, The Supreme Court. It was a decision agreed upon by an overwhelming majority (7-2) of Supreme Court justices with great intellect and with regard to the highest law of the land, the U.S. Constitution. It is both preposterous and unflinchingly myopic to say that this decision is not legalistic.

Mr. Hoffman, you mentioned the word “life” with regard to a woman’s womb. Let me quote what the Supreme Court said about this: “We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins. When those trained in the respective disciplines of medicine, philosophy, and theology are unable to arrive at any consensus, the judiciary, at this point in the development of man’s knowledge, is not in a position to speculate as to the answer.”

While the court does not determine for us the point at which life begins, it certainly does determine that the First, Fourth, Fifth, Ninth and Fourteenth Amendments inherently support a right to privacy and are “broad enough to encompass a woman’s decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy.”

This is a delicate and heated issue that has our country divided. However, the overwhelming majority of our country (if you look at recent polls) does NOT want Roe v. Wade overturned.

This is with good reason. Being “pro-choice” or “pro-life” is a personal choice, maybe even a religious choice. Mr. Hoffman, you are quite obviously pro-life, and I respect you for your opinion. This is the very thing that makes America so great. We can all have disparate opinions.

Following Mr. Hoffman’s article in Friday’s Peachtree Citizen was David Epps’ article which basically said that we, as a society, should not be so shocked at heinous men soliciting children for sex over the Internet because we currently allow legal abortions.

Mr. Epps, you stated that the church has never been confused about the issue of abortion. However, I don’t attend your church, Mr. Epps, and I might not even subscribe to your church’s beliefs, but as we all learned in our history classes, the founding fathers of our great country made separation of church and state an absolute certainty when they framed our Constitution.

By Epps’ article alone, the reversal of Roe v. Wade would most indeed be unconstitutional. Readers, regardless of your stance on abortion, you should most certainly be shocked by sexual predators on the Internet.

I don’t see how overturning a Supreme Court decision deems the appropriateness of being shocked and surprised by disgusting pedophiles preying on our children.

For 33 years and counting, the law affords women reproductive rights, including the right to obtain medically safe and legal abortions. These women are our mothers, our sisters, our grandmothers, our best friends, Protestants, Catholics, Christians.

Maybe it is not part of your personal belief system to terminate a pregnancy. Maybe it’s not part of my personal belief system. The point is, very simply, it is a woman’s right to choose. That choice is between a woman, her doctor and God.

A woman’s right to choose is indeed supported by the Constitution. I won’t ask you to prove it, Mr. Hoffman. The Supreme Court has done that for us already.

Laurie Greer
Peachtree City, Ga.

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