Choice

The Morning Call provides helpful mini-headlines for each Letter to the Editor. “School Taxes Ruin Seniors” is a classic. I don’t need to read “Why should we seniors pay school taxes when we have no children in public schools?” for the hundredth time. Running a close second in frequency under the Letters to the Editor banner is “Things Were Better Under Trump”. I don’t need to read “Putin respected and feared President Trump. He would never have invaded Ukraine if Trump was still in the White House.”

Yesterday brought a deceptive mini-headline. “Woman Have A Choice Other Than Abortion”. Surely, this would advocate giving newborns to a (likely Catholic) foundling home and to almost immediate adoption (especially for healthy white infants). Black, brown, or handicapped infants would have to take their chances.

I was wrong. James Knerr wrote, “Pro-Choice women claim that they are losing their ‘choice’. They don’t realize that they already have one. When a woman decides to become intimate with a man, that is her choice. All she has to do is say ‘No’. If she chooses ‘Yes’, she must face the consequences. There are no second chances.”

What world are you living in, James? Sex is a prime human urge. Despite what the priest told you in catechism class, sex is not limited to married people trying for a baby and, even then, only when the woman is “in the mood”. Those “consequences” are dire for both the woman and the unborn child — poverty, limited opportunity, etc.

James continued, “What about rape, incest, etc.? Yes, those are difficult situations, but, please, they number so few of the total number of abortions.”

Drunken drivers also “number so few of the total number of drivers” (except after 2 AM on weekends when the bars close). According to James’ logic, drunken driving should not be considered separately from unimpaired driving. All driving should be either legal or illegal, take your pick. Vehicular homicide qualifies as a “difficult situation”, but why consider it?

James concluded, “It still isn’t the baby’s fault. Why should the baby suffer? When will the pro-choice crowd start taking responsibility for their own actions and stop blaming someone else?”

I pray that there is not a Mrs James Knerr and that there are no Knerr daughters. James is the poster child for misogeny. “It’s all the woman’s fault.” Seriously?

By Ed Dufton