INDY'S WEEKLY ALTERNATIVE NEWSPAPER HIGHLIGHTING ARTS, ENTERTAINMENT AND SOCIAL JUSTICE

Image of God

I was glad to read that pro-choice people seek fewer numbers of abortions (News, “Reproductive Health Advocates to Rally at Statehouse,” Jan. 31-Feb. 7). Your specific complaints are 1) making sure public school reproductive information is “medically accurate” and 2) Sen. Miller believes a) human life begins at conception and that b) fetuses experience pain. 

In arguing for abortion, Carl Sagan wrote in 1977 that embryo development “run[s] through stages very much like fish, reptiles and non-primate mammals before we become recognizably human.” In short, embryos are nothing more than fish. Discredited in 1911, this view, called “embryonic recapitulation,” remained in textbooks until the 1990s. Do you believe embryos are not human?

Traditional ways of terminating a pregnancy involve 1) burning with salt; 2) cutting and “vacuuming”; 3) inducing violent early delivery, usually resulting in decapitation; or 4) partially delivery, removing the brains while alive in order to ease passage. Is there a new pain-free way to terminate a fetus?

You don’t want prospective aborters or public school students to be told the above. Therefore, I doubt you are truly interested in lowering the number of live babies aborted. You are solely interested in promoting contraceptive information and wish to appear as though you are “reaching across the aisle.” Furthermore, for instance, over half the women that take the pill stop within a year because of side effects. A close friend of my wife’s nearly died. The pill is not safe, and that is medically accurate.

We have very different views and I don’t want you to take this e-mail as anything other than direct constructive criticism. I don’t hate you. I believe you were made in the image of God and that makes you very valuable to me.