May 11, 2022·2 min read
To the editor: Reading the letters from readers about their abortions and how they affected their lives was heart-wrenching.
Banning abortion is based on a religious belief that human life begins at conception. However, there is not yet a medical or moral consensus about when human life really begins.
For example, many in the Jewish community do not believe that human life begins until birth. So banning abortion on the basis of a Christian belief would be a violation of their religious freedom, which is guaranteed in the Constitution.
Members of the conservative Christian religious community have been trying for years to force their beliefs on the American public, and now it looks as if they will succeed. I am certainly no constitutional scholar, but it seems to me that the principle of separation of church and state is being violated here.
Could this ever become the legal basis on which this battle is fought?
John Beckman, Chino Hills
To the editor: I was very moved to read the letters from people sharing their experiences with abortion. But there is another aspect to the horrors of a world in which abortion is illegal: the experiences of women who have miscarriages.
In 1987 I was experiencing a normal pregnancy. I went on a camping holiday, and in a remote camping site I had a miscarriage.
In a world in which abortion was illegal, how would that have looked? I shudder to think of the interrogation I would have had to endure, and wonder how on earth I would have proved my "innocence."
Up to a quarter of pregnancies end in miscarriage.
Claire Chik, Torrance
To the editor: Considering the outcry nationwide regarding the demise of Roe vs. Wade, your coverage and the testimonials in letters to the editor, it's pretty obvious most protesters believe is that abortions will be illegal nationwide. No, their legality will go back to the states.
For Californians, so apoplectic over this potential ruling, nothing will change. If you live among pro-lifers in an antiabortion state, just go to another state. This is easier than going to Tijuana, as one of your letter writers said she did.
Put away your placards and pack your bags if you are in a red state that objects to the estimated 60 million children whose lives were ended by abortion since 1973. Statistics indicate the majority of aborted babies were people of color — does this make the protesters racist?
Obviously, these technically living children, facing the knife, have no rights at all.
Mark Collins, Altadena
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/letters-editor-human-life-begins-100027116.html
