To the editor:

The abortion issue has been debated for years, probably by smarter and kinder people than Ms. Harden and me. We are not going to resolve in the Whidbey Record whether women should have abortions. In fact I’m not trying to change anyone’s mind.

What I do want is her giving more accurate caring information to young women who find themselves pregnant and have to plan for their physical, mental and spiritual health. I want society seeing a woman’s decision as a public health issue, not a moral issue.

It is not helpful to anyone to use phrases like “killing babies,” even if that is one’s personal view, because it does irreparable harm to women who feel they have to make a difficult decision, especially teenagers who may not understand metaphorical devices.

It is not true that abortion can be performed in the last months of pregnancy. All you have to do is look at government welfare amounts, limited to five years, to know how much help there is for mothers and children after the “baby supplies, parenting classes, and housing during pregnancy” are exhausted.

And, presuming someone does not know the ontological process of a fetus because they don’t paint inflammatory, emotionally-charged mental pictures like “how a baby in the womb tries to avoid the killing instruments,” is enough to cause the dubious results Ms. Harden claims for women who have had an abortion.

Ms. Harden is concerned because I said she was having “idealistic fantasies.” Ideals are what we realize is possible. Idealism or idealistic fantasies turn that sacred impulse (ideal: possibility of a loving mother) into a movement, doctrine or system of beliefs, making it “individualistic, materialistic” and causing harm where one means to do good.

All I am asking is that Ms. Harden unload her language gun, try to give accurate, caring, unbiased information and to trust that the eternal ideal of a loving mother is lived out by truly loving all her children.

Lynn Geri

Clinton