CORRESPONDENCE
CORRESPONDENCE Abortion Amendment Newark, Ohio To the Editors: I have known Mr. Edward Laylin for some years as a gentleman and a sincere man. He may indeed be correct in his letter of June 18...
...It is something like the earnest young woman at an abortion debate who demanded to know how I could have my dog spayed and be against abortion...
...When human beings are killed on the streets, an aroused society imposes its morality on the killers and incarcerates them...
...Brain waves are measurable only 43 days after conception, and probably exist before that, without our capacity to measure them...
...This is the ultimate in tolerance...
...There are two basic facts being conveniently ignored in both cases namely, that human life does in fact begin at conception, and that all laws are an expression of someone's morality...
...When the right to exist is taken away, all other rights go with it...
...william e. kappes Crestwood, N.Y...
...When everyone knows what is in the womb, an aroused society will again protect all its members...
...I particularly enjoyed the comment that some of his best friends are bishops...
...Actually this amendment was not an expression of public morality, but was the expression of a hardcore group of social theorists who felt that they knew what was best for all of us...
...Of what value is any human right if the right to life is not protected...
...We must keep an eye on our priorities...
...It is a demonstrable fact that the unborn baby is finished and complete after 12 Weeks, and the remaining time in the (Continued on page 607) CORRESPONDENCE (Continued from page 579) womb is devoted to growth in size and strength...
...We are saying, as a society, that some lives are worth more than others and that all men are not equal in the sight of God...
...But when we speak of abortion we are speaking of the deliberate taking of human life...
...Human nature has its defects too, and it is necessary to protect ourselves by enacting protective laws...
...It is interesting to note that pro-abortionists do not challenge the existence of human life in the womb, but base their argument on a claim that it is not meaningful life, and that the unborn child is not a person, according to their definition of person...
...It is my own regard for the basic rights of individuals, including the right to be let alone and even to be wrong so long as the fundamental rights of others are not invaded, that prompts me to guard the most basic right of all the right to life...
...WALTER R. TRINKAUS Professor of Law Loyola University School of Law...
...Truly there is no comparison between this amendment and the proposed "Right-to-Life" amendment...
...Logically we must admit that the product of human conception is itself human, and since we accept the absence of brain waves as a sign of death, then we must accept the presence of brain waves as a sign of life...
...As I have the right and even the obligation to speak out in the first instance, so also do I have the right and the obligation to speak out in the second...
...CORRESPONDENCE Abortion Amendment Newark, Ohio To the Editors: I have known Mr...
...If parallels which are "too pat to be ignored" must be trotted out, let us bring forth once again those drawn from a society which saw whole classes of people (Jews and others) deemed "non-persons" and thus dispensable...
...We have laws against theft (thou shall not steal), murder (thou shall not kill), prostitution, vandalism, rape, drunken driving, etc., etc...
...For example, we might try to ban voluntary sterilization or insist that people be forced to go to church once a week...
...E. Liley, an Australian fetologist, and to From Conception to Birth, an American publication whose authors' names escape me at the moment...
...LAURA B. KENNELLY Los Angeles, Cal...
...Laylin is against such an amendment because he feels the parallels between the "prohibition" efforts of his Methodist church and the "Right-to-Life" efforts of Catholics are "too pat to be ignored...
...He may indeed be correct in his letter of June 18 Commonweal that the amendment to the Constitution regarding "Right to Life" may not have popular support and may be ignored by the people of America...
...Speaking to the second fact that all laws are an expression of someone's morality I would cite the same example of the 18th or "Prohibition" amendment...
...Also, his equating drinking and prohibition laws with abortions and right-to-life laws might appeal to those who are amused by distortions...
...Ignoring Mr...
...Human beings are being killed in both places...
...ELIZABETH D. CORBETT Denton, Texas To the Editors: Unlike Edward H. Lay-lin ("Letters," June 18) I hope that the editors of Commonweal will support a "Pro-Life" amendment to the Constitution...
...rev...
...The people of "Right-to-Life" are attempting to restore legal protection to an entire class of human beings, and our sole argument is the nature of the child in the womb...
...If Catholics were really trying to compel everybody to follow "their concept of ethical principles" we could write hundreds of new laws...
...There are too many people who don't know the first thing about the development of the child in the womb, and they are easy prey to those who advocate abortion as a means to procure social benefits...
...What is disturbing, however, is the persistence of the idea that those of us who want to see abortions made illegal are motivated by some compulsion to force our concepts of morality on others...
...To the Editors: Your editorial and the subsequent letter from Edward H. Laylin in the June 18 issue re the "Right-to-Life" amendment have prompted my response...
...However, the advocates of a "Right to Life" amendment to the Constitution are not asking protection of the unborn because abortion is a sin, but because it undermines the protection of life for all of us and therefore is a danger to the tranquillity of the community in general...
...Actions such as these would be silly and would be parallel to the Methodist attempts to ban liquor...
...Laylin's attempts to polarize abortion into a "Catholics versus the World" issue (after all, many Protestants are deeply committed to pro-life concepts, too), there are other flaws in such thinking...
...The sanctity and dignity of life given to man by God is not an exclusively Catholic doctrine it is one Christians share...
...Such parallels are also too pat to be believed...
...Public morality morality shared by most people always finds expression in law...
...To the Editors: From some perspectives, the letter of Methodist Edward H. Laylin [June 18] opposing a Right to Life Constitutional amendment is amusing...
...Speaking to the first fact that human life begins at conception I refer you to the work of Dr...
...Or let us remember the time when our own courts and citizens ruled slaves were "non-persons...
...The difference between killing in the streets and killing in the womb is a difference in location...
...Just as we are now ashamed that such things could have happened, so we will be ashamed that we declared certain very young humans "non-persons" and allowed them to be killed...
Vol. 103 • September 1976 • No. 19
