Abortion Threatens All of Us

Though abortion takes life at its earliest stages, it inevitably threatens human life at all stages. If a society permits the taking of innocent human life before birth, there is no logical reason for not taking human life at any time after birth. This dynamic is already at work in places like the Netherlands, where (for instance) a doctor visited an elderly patient's home and found the patient had a cough. The doctor then gave the patient an injection, which killed him in an hour. The wife of the man called their regular doctor and told him through her tears “Doctor, Doctor, why did he kill John? John didn’t want to die.” Such activity is not prosecuted in the Netherlands; incredibly, what this doctor did was legal, and he suffered no legal consequences.

In another case in the Netherlands, a doctor escorted his patient, who had cancer, to the hospital on a Friday. He told his patient that on Monday, they would talk about what treatment plan to pursue. When he returned on Monday, he did not find his patient in her bed. “Where did you move Mrs. VanderHoff?” asked the doctor. “Oh, we euthanised [killed] her yesterday”, replied the doctor on duty over the weekend. “You what?” said the astonished doctor. “Well," explained the weekend MD, "we euthanised her yesterday. Look, Doctor, she wasn’t going to make it anyway, she had metastatic cancer.” “Well, yes I know, but she wasn’t in pain. She hadn’t even been treated yet”, said the regular doctor. “Well, that may be, but in any case, we needed the bed” was the final word from the guy on duty on the weekend.

Drawing on the work of Dr. Karl Gunning, founder and president of the World Federation of Doctors Who Respect Life, Dr. John Willke reports that "A little more than 130,000 people die in the Netherlands every year. Twenty-five thousand is the number that he [Gunning] says are killed by doctors. Worse yet, half of these are killed without the patient’s knowledge or consent." Willke explains that "If you are admitted to a hospital in Holland and you happen to have gray hair, it will not be long before a person will call on you and for a modest fee, they will watch your case to insure that your doctor does not kill you. Many senior citizens in Holland carry a card in their wallet, protesting that they do not want to be killed and that they do want care."

Pro-life speaker Alan Keyes once explained that "You cannot destroy respect for life in principle, and expect to sustain that respect in fact." Abortion spells death for the unborn; once it is socially accepted, it threatens untimely death for the rest of us. May this nation respect life in the womb; for if it does not, human life outside the womb will fall under attack too. No to abortion; yes to life.

Rudy Poglitsh
rpoglitsh@live.com
more letters at http://letterstotheTOS.blogspot.com

Pro-Woman, Pro-Life

To be pro-life is to be pro-woman. Frank Pavone, director of Priests for Life, puts it this way: "We do not say, 'Love the baby and forget about the mother.' Rather, we say 'Why can't we love them both?' We can and we must. To harm one is to harm the other; to love and serve one is to love and serve the other." Priests for Life takes this approach based on the leadership of a remarkable Christian leader who died about 5 years ago, Pope John Paul II. In his book Crossing the Threshold of Hope, the Pope said "in firmly rejecting 'pro-choice', it is necessary to become courageously 'pro woman,' promoting a choice that is truly in favor of women...The only honest stance...is that of radical solidarity with the woman."

Let all people of good will work for the genuine welfare of both women and children. No to abortion; yes to life.

Rudy Poglitsh
rpoglitsh@live.com
more letters at http://letterstotheTOS.blogspot.com