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Web Letter

Few things work as well in making a prolife person like myself feel justified in our cause like a skilled proabortion wordsmith attempting to paint us in the worst possible light--and failing!

I know that many conservatives like myself come to the Nation site to read and understand progressives, and when we see an article like this, so awkwardly skewed, our hearts soar, and we hope that many of your subscribers will read it.

I believe Ms. Pollitt is correct. Spending $2.5 million for a thirty-second ad is a colossal waste, for any advertiser, if you ask me. But if it’s worth it to sell beer or Internet access, why is it not worth it to save the life of a baby, Katha? Over 55 million unborn babies have died since the passing of Roe v. Wade. Please tell me how many of those you believe, had they gone the other way, would have turned out with a husband weeping at a graveside, or might have produced a Ted Bundy? And don’t we take that chance at every birth, rather than just the ones that get aborted?

Conservatives use "proabortion" to define your cause, and from our point of view, that is a correct depiction, considering the horrendous abortion statistics, and the aggressive behavior of the "proabortion" people in promoting the activities of organizations such as Planned Parenthood that have nothing to do with parenthood and everything to do with abortion.

Ms. Pollitt did not coin the word "antichoicer," but it could not be a more inaccurate description of us, and her use of it helps to puts the spotlight on her true agenda.

Choice is the wonderful right given us all, not by government but by our Creator. Our founders recognized this, and acknowledged it in our Constitution. But in so doing, they did not attempt to define good choices and bad choices.

Our Creator, in infinite wisdom, made us to be societal individuals, and built within us the ability to discern good and evil. All great religions, and the foundations of philosophy, are based on our recognition of this distinction. Human will is so guided by this instinct that every event in human history carries within it an argument for each side of the issue. And so it is for abortion.

Many of the events of human history will be debated by philosophers and clerics for all time, and that is how it should be. But not so for abortion. Nine men in black robes have decided the argument for all of us. Abortion is not an evil.

When Roe v. Wade is finally overturned, and the individual is left to decide for herself whether abortion is good or evil, choice will be restored.

You ask “Are people so easily manipulated?” No, Katha, they are not.

Web Letter

All this talk from anti abortion people about how terrible abortion is. There are times when it would have really been a good thing. Just think if Adolf Hitler's mother had one instead of bringing her monster into the world? And how about Jeffrey Dahmer? I could go on, but I think you get the point.

I have a wife, two adult daughters and a granddaughter. We all believe in a woman's right to choose. It's always amazed us that these wing nuts believe an abortion (even if needed badly to save a woman) is killing something that is still unborn, but it's okay to go out and kill abortion doctors! No need to say that they are a few bricks shy of a load, and in Palin's favorite word, retards, because the what I just wrote about them speaks for itself.

Thank God we finally have a president with brains and compassion. Let's hope we can start seeing that in our citizens.

Web Letter

Did anyone really believe CBS would go for an ad by a dating service calling itself ManCrush? Better to rerun the "TV" Holiday Inn ad from the Charger-49er Super Bowl.

Web Letter

While I think the advertisement is inappropriate, because I would rather the Super Bowl be free of politics, I think that the ad will actually help advocates of legalized abortion. As such, I am surprised that an antiabortion group would choose to run it.

The reason for this is that antiabortion groups try to portray abortion as a lifestyle choice made by people who are both overly promiscuous and too shortsighted and irresponsible to take contraception. Proabortion groups try to portray abortion as a medical issue rather than a lifestyle choice. There are many people who are uncomfortable with abortion but would never want it banned in situations where there is a real health concern to the mother. Thus, it is surprising that an antiabortion group’s advertisement would highlight the fact that there are medical reasons that people have abortions. Most of the viewers of the advertisement will realize that for many of the people who have medical concerns, the results will be different from that of Pam Tebow.

Web Letter

Katha Pollitt imagines a husband at a graveside mourning his wife who refused to get an abortion. Remember that the Catholic Church has canonized Gianna Beretta Molla, an Italian pediatrician who refused both an abortion and a hysterectomy when diagnosed with a uterine fibroma during a pregnancy in 1962. The child was successfully born by Caesarian section (and survived to become a physician herself who attended her mother's canonization ceremony in 2004), but Molla died a week later of septic peritonitis.

Perhaps Focus on the Family, being an Evangelical Protestant organization, would not make a laudatory ad about St. Gianna's sacrifice, but I can imagine a Catholic prolife organization doing so. Would such an ad get a spot during the Super Bowl, though? I doubt it.