The Constitution v. Abortion

The editorial ``Uncivil Religion and a Doctor's Death,'' Aug. 11, was the most disturbing thing I've ever read in the Monitor.

I agree with the sentiment that assassination of abortion doctors is nothing but violent hypocrisy on the part of certain pro-life groups.

But then your newspaper sees fit to jump squarely into the worldly business of Roe v. Wade justification. This is more than disheartening. To gather that the US Constitution somehow guarantees the right to terminate a pregnancy, to destroy what any thinking person can at least agree is a developing human being, has to be the darkest hour in Supreme Court history.

Rape and incest victims aside, the right to choose, for men and women alike, exists at the point of conception. To try to avoid natural consequences through law instead of using law to strengthen a principled society would certainly be revolting to the framers of our Constitution. Scott Laningham, Boston

The Constitution v. Abortion

While it may be that a person practicing a truly consistent and faithful Christianity might never choose to terminate a pregnancy, it is also true that for the same reason that person would not hate or do violence to her neighbor, even those whose world views and life circumstances differed drastically from her own.

Hating and combating those whose understanding of life differs from one's own can do nothing to improve society. It can do nothing to eliminate the causes of unwanted pregnancies or the circumstances that might lead a woman to terminate a pregnancy.

On the other hand, how much moral progress might we be able to make as a society if all who profess to follow religion based on love for God and man could find it in themselves to set a consistent example of compassion, sanity, and self-discipline? Mary Lynn Moore, Houston

Independent thinking

The Danziger cartoon, Aug. 22, states that IBM tells its employees how to think. This was very disappointing. I worked for IBM for 13 years. I was never told how or what to think. Individual excellence was encouraged and rewarded. Your cartoon sorely misrepresents IBM. Judy Cole, Lake Orion, Mich.

A Presidio-like view

There is truth in the opinion piece about the Presidio of San Francisco ``Pardon Me, General, Do You Have Any Grey Poupon?,'' Aug. 25. The Presidio is a nice place to live.

But any American could have entered the long-odds lottery to live there. The price of a ticket was the best years of your life. Graduate from college. Join the Regular Army, and give up any hope of material wealth. Sign on for maybe 25 years in a string of dreary Army posts stretching from North Carolina to West Texas. Bring a bride home to a tiny little row house on a scorched plain that wouldn't even meet low-income standards in most places. Move from Georgia to Germany for three years. Then back to Dixie. And once again back to another gray, cramped high-rise in Germany.

There's one other tough qualification: You have to outlive one, two, sometimes three wars. Very few of those survivors, of whom I was one, were ordered to a welcome last assignment at the Presidio. My wife shed a tear at the wonderful view we finally had. Richard A. Jones, Benicia, Calif.

Laws of emotion

The pro-con opinion-page package ``Private Property and Public Rights,'' Aug. 15, pits Rep. W.J. Tauzin (D) of Louisiana against Peter A.A. Berle of the National Audubon Society on the issue of environmental regulations and how they are affecting private property rights.

Mr. Berle starts off by lamenting if only there were ``truth in labeling'' laws applied to bills introduced in Congress.

That's a good idea, but if such laws were enforced, they would discredit many of the bills written by the environmental community and submitted by their friends in Congress. Too many of the environmental bills passed into law today are based purely on emotions or unproven scientific ``theories'' and would be unable to withstand a ``truth'' test. Y. Leon Favreau, Shelburne, N.H.

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