Letter: Forever grateful to Planned Parenthood for what it does

Published 1:30 am Tuesday, January 15, 2019

Editor,

The coming 46th year anniversary of Roe vs. Wade is certainly a time for reflection, as Lorinda Newton says in her letter.

As I think about how the law is structured, I am amazed again at how right nine old white guys got it: the first trimester, easy; second trimester a lot harder; third trimester pretty tough, usually impossible. That seems just about perfect to me. How were they so wise?

Ms. Newton is simply wrong that Planned Parenthood doesn’t explain the full range of options available to women facing an unwanted pregnancy and the full range of risks of the procedure. But they only offer medically proven information, not false statistics about women inevitably having life-long regrets or illnesses as a result of the abortion.

People who feel as Ms. Newton does believe a newly fertilized egg is a person as worthy of protection as anyone else.

They don’t understand that most people don’t see the tiny cluster of cells that way. Such people may not be religious or their particular religious beliefs might hold that a fetus isn’t a person until it is born, or even later, in some cultures. They simply don’t share the same premises as pro-life people, so they will never agree. But people who are pro-life want to force everyone to follow their particular religious viewpoint. They haven’t been successful in persuading everyone to their point of view, so they just want to force it on everyone by law.

The reason Roe vs. Wade came about was the injustice of forcing everyone to follow a rule that was based on the beliefs of a particular religion which not all people hold. That is simply un-American, so the court fixed it.

And by the way, abortion is not a big money maker for anyone. Planned Parenthood has a solid history of helping everyone, no matter how poor they are.

This included me when I was a poor student. I will be always grateful for their information, council and compassionate help, which they have continued to offer others for many decades.

Time for another donation to them, I think.

Sharon Emerson

Langley