Re: Throng packs Washington to support abortion rights, April 26.
Again and again the public is given editorials as news. The article here was no different. From the pictures to the prose, the news media continue to press their agenda and politics on the American people. There have been prolife gatherings in Washington that have been in the thousands also. Thousands of women gathering because they have had abortions and regret the decision and the lies that were told to them. They want others to know the truth. Why have these gatherings not been reported as front-page news?
Why is it we don't see the pictures of aborted fetuses? Do you really think that women do not have the intestinal fortitude to see these pictures? Do they not have the right to know about fetal development and what abortion really is? Has anyone told them that at the moment of conception this life that was created has a completely different DNA than the mother does? This is not her body, but a different body - a different person. Just because I am in the house does not make me part of the house! A fetus being in the womb of a mother, no matter how small, does not make it part of the mother!
If it is our choice, then let us have a choice that is filled with truth! Don't push your politics down our throats with one-sided "news." At least, report both sides fairly. America deserves better from its news sources!
-- Linda Rodante, Tarpon Springs
Raising voices for women's rights
On Sunday, 1-million women and their male supporters gathered from all over this country and from 60 nations worldwide. They gathered to protest the current administration's policy to remove the rights that women have worked hard for over the past 30-plus years to gain control over their own bodies.
In small towns and cities all across this country women gathered on street corners to lend their voices.
We will not go back to the days of coat-hanger abortions. We will not go back to the days of no birth control. We will be heard. Come next November, we will be heard.
-- Alice Donovan, Port Richey
A deadly leap
Re: Abortion march.
I am amazed how people can make the leap from killing a child that is growing inside of them to giving women a choice over their bodies. It seems to me they had that choice when they chose to have sex. Why didn't they think of that then? It seems to me that abortion is a method of birth control to avoid the consequences of unprotected sex. The abortions done as the result of rape or incest are less than 1 percent. That leaves 99 percent of these mass killings of babies as a result of people who just had sex and did not worry that they may be creating a life. Wake up out there. How can anyone say abortion is not taking a life?
Saddam Hussein tortured and murdered people in Iraq. Every day thousands of babies are killed in our country in the name of "freedom." It truly grieves my heart.
-- Kathy Zell, St. Petersburg
Another death toll to consider
I am curious why the media are so consumed with the number of Americans killed in this war and certain other past wars, but always overlook the 3,400 American babies that are killed or aborted every day in this country. That is more than 1.3-million per year. Most are very preventable.
I am not 100 percent against abortions in all cases, but if you are looking for public outrage for numbers of deaths, I am sure this abortion number would get it.
I am sure the reason you don't publish this number is that it doesn't fit your party's agenda.
-- William Saksefski, Tierra Verde
Hollow arguments
Re: Faithful to march - but for choice, April 24.
As a devout Christian, I was shocked to read the statements made by Frances Kissling, the president of Catholics for Free Choice, and Julia Aires, a Quaker. Not only are they unfounded biblically, but they are not logical. According to Kissling, if we all followed the Fifth Commandment we'd be "vegetarians and pacifists." First, the word used in the Bible is murder. The words murder and kill have different meanings. You cannot murder an animal. Second, the Bible condones war. The Israelites waged war against many armies according to God's will. They were even commanded to kill everyone in the towns they overtook. Julia Aires also falls victim to gross misinterpretation. She states that God gave us free will, thus Christians should be prochoice. Following that logic, we should not try to prevent any crimes. The perpetrators are simply acting upon their God-given right to free will. It is clear in the Bible that while we have free will, we must prevent evil from happening.
While I do not agree with these arguments or abortion, these women are entitled to their opinion and to march for it. They may want to consider revising their arguments, though. Illogical statements will not win any followers; it will only incite the silent prolifers like me.
-- Mary Jo Menke-Wright, St. Petersburg
Beware when when faith is forced
I am delighted to see that people of faith can have their own opinions on current events. It seems that when churches threaten politicians with excommunication, and when people of faith realize that "politicians of faith" are forcing you to abide by their interpretation of faith, you can now understand why people rally for separation of church and state.
Other examples of imposing politicians' faith on society include Sunday blue laws, laws against penny-ante poker games at home, Saturday night alcohol curfews, limits on the morning-after contraceptive and tax-funded faith-based school vouchers.
People of faith who feel most comfortable following their religious dictates should keep an open mind that there are many religions in the world with strong beliefs that differ dramatically. There were also hundreds of millions of people who lived in civilizations prior to our concept of religion. Our religious culture has always helped our society tolerate its differences, but not when the churches tell politicians what they have to vote for or support. When faith dictates our laws and our lives, we are back in the Dark Ages when religion ruled the world.
I applaud all the people who march for free will and free choice.
-- Gloria R. Julius, St. Petersburg
Kerry is not true to his faith
Re: Kerry rallies for abortion rights, April 24.
Like the magician who distracts with his left hand while his right hand does the trick, Sen. John Kerry says he personally opposes abortion while he supports the right to choose. The right to choose. Keep your eye on the right, because, hidden behind "choose" is the choice of having an abortion, which he says he opposes. Nice trick.
Apparently not everyone is fooled by Kerry's sleight of tongue. Speaking from the Vatican, Cardinal Francis Arinze said that a Catholic politician who supports abortion rights is "not fit" to receive the Eucharist. Well, "not fit" does not mean "not allowed." As long as a Catholic is in the state of grace, i.e., absolved of all confessed sins, that Catholic may partake of all the Sacraments, especially Holy Communion. But supporting even the right to have an abortion flies in the face of Catholic teaching on the sanctity of life from conception. Kerry certainly knows this. How disappointing that he didn't take a stand but straddled the issue of abortion. Not fit? I say not true to his faith.
Kerry said he agreed with the late President John Kennedy when he said, "I do not speak for my church on public matters and my church does not speak for me." Nonsense. The subject of abortion may be a public matter, but the act of abortion is a private decision. While his church does not - and should never - speak for him, Kerry should speak for his church, that is to say, to proclaim and defend its teachings. Since abortion is murder in the eyes of Kerry's church, rallying for abortion rights is rallying for the right to murder. What was he thinking?
Someone should remind Kerry that, while we can keep church and state separate, those governing and the citizens they govern can never be separated from their faith.
-- Jack Bray, Dunedin
Be consistent in prolife positions
Re: John Kerry and the Catholic Church.
As a Roman Catholic, I'm torn between laughter and outrage at the current brouhaha about whether John Kerry is "fit to receive communion."
It seems the right wing (and it is the right wing that has stirred this up) has forgotten some essential parts of the church's prolife doctrine. Indisputably the church disapproves of the death penalty every bit as strongly as it disapproves of abortion.
Yet Kerry, who is rendering to Caesar what is Caesar's, is publicly bashed by prelates who should know that they have no right to comment on the conscience of any other human being. Meanwhile our current governor, Jeb Bush, has been warmly welcomed into the church and the Knights of Columbus. As far as I know, no one has told him he's unfit to receive the Eucharist because he routinely signs death warrants.
The danger here is that Catholics will think this is a single-issue election. It is not. We currently have a president who launched us into a war which the Vatican and the American Catholic Bishops declared was unjust. We have a governor (Catholic) who executes people.
So I say to every Catholic out there: If you're prolife, then according to the church you must also be against the war and the death penalty. If you're not, then you and Kerry are in the same boat: "not fit to receive communion."
-- Sue Brown, Wesley Chapel
Church should stay out of government
I am prompted to write, because of the recent articles about some clergy of the Catholic Church withholding communion from Catholic politicians because they support a woman's right to choose. I have not read one word about doing the same to politicians who support the war in Iraq, which the church is also adamantly against.
I am a practicing Catholic and I support choice and I receive communion because the church should stay out of government affairs and stick to the business of saving souls. If the church continues with its archaic teaching, its priests may find themselves serving communion to no one. The church is not always correct, as we are all well aware. A vote against choice is a vote against the gift of free will that God has given us. That right is just as inalienable as life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
-- Vincent Corelli, New Port Richey
Insensitive comments on Catholicism
Re: A new twist on Catholics in politics, by Ellen Goodman, April 15.
I do not know nor do I care to know Ellen Goodman's religion. But if I did, I would certainly treat it a lot more respectfully than she did my Catholicism.
"Holy Communion beat," "wafer watch" - was this meant to be funny? What a totally insensitive and poor choice of words to describe the most important ritual of our Mass. Her article indeed was food for thought - but to make light of our "spiritual" food was indeed poor taste.
-- Janet A. Sunderland, Spring Hill
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