Opinion: Abortion pill just continues a dark chapter in history

For a million babies a year, their deaths through abortion don't really matter if it's in the first six weeks or at eight months -- it's all the same; they are dead. We, the parents, are responsible for our children until they reach a legal age. Our responsibility for our children travels through their early, total dependency on us as well as later in their pre-adulthood age, when they could be viable outside our home. This birth-through-18 period for us pro-lifers has the same responsibilities as the conception-to-birth period. We do not feel the fetus has to be viable to be a baby. Upon conception, we have a human being; we just have stages of development.

Your article said the Food and Drug Administration attached several sensible conditions to its approval of RU-486. In case of complications, if the prescribing physician doesn't do surgery, he has to be able to refer the patient to a physician with surgical capability. What else would any physician do -- let his or her patient die or be permanently injured? Also, you said that women receive a brochure explaining the procedure and the side effects. With any prescribed drugs we receive information about all the side effects. These aren't sensible conditions but givens under any doctor/patient relationship.

The approval of RU-486 is just another unexplainable chapter in our history, which would have our forefathers turning over in their graves. This law of legal abortion also surpasses any atrocities I ever studied in U.S. or world history. To the children and grandchildren of this generation who survive this abortionist society, how do we explain this dark chapter in our history?
-- Shawn Bayes, Seminole

Death of a baby is still the result

The recent approval by the Food and Drug Administration of the abortion drug mifepristone does not change a thing in the abortion debate. The reality and the end result remain the same -- the death of a baby. Whether this baby dies by an abortionist's knife or a pill matters not; the baby is still dead.

Pro-abortionists just don't seem to understand this underlying reality. Through all their rhetoric in defense of abortion, they never touch this most basic fact. They can't, because once they even begin to approach it, the fact that a baby dies in each abortion smacks them squarely between the eyes. Talk about a consciousness-raising event!

Those of us who speak up for these, our littlest citizens, will continue to do so because of this most basic fact. Whether it be by suction machine, knife or pill, abortion kills a child.
-- Michael H. Wyka, Floral City

Focus on preventing pregnancy

Re: Quiet until now, a polarizing issue re-enters political race, Sept. 29.

George W. Bush, echoing other politicians who oppose the availability of RU-486, states that his aim is to reduce the abortion rate. But restricting women's access to abortion is a misguided and dangerous strategy toward that aim and will do nothing to reduce the demand for abortion services. Neither will criminalizing abortion through the reversal of Roe vs. Wade.

I challenge Bush and other anti-choice individuals to redirect their efforts toward supporting the prevention of unintended pregnancy. This is the common ground for concerned citizens on both sides of the abortion debate, and it can be accomplished through comprehensive sex education and family planning services. As a proud former employee of our local Planned Parenthood affiliate, I know that organization does more to prevent the need for abortion than the opposition would ever acknowledge.
-- McKell Moorhead, Tampa

Arguing for a life

Re: Court commands an unjust sacrifice, Sept. 29.

I want to comment on Robert Sirico's column about the London court's decision that the conjoined twins Jodie and Mary must be separated.

He complained that the judges used a "utilitarian rationale" rather than "sound moral reasoning." He wants us to "consider the parents point of view," which could be a powerful argument if it was not coming from a Roman Catholic priest, well-known for not giving in to a mother's wishes for things like birth control or abortion. I find it a strange twist that although he believes the doctor's testimony that both babies will die without the separation, he continues to justify in philosophical terms that they should not have the operation. Perhaps you could follow his reasoning better than I.

But I have some philosophy I'd like him to consider. It's called common sense, like having one dead baby instead of two.
-- Doris Whelan, St. Petersburg

A greater disregard

Re: What next? Pregnancy police? letter, Oct. 2.

I read this letter with dismay. The writer seems to think that a pregnant woman has a responsibility only toward herself. In reality, however, each pregnant woman (excluding those who were raped) made a choice (sound familiar?) that resulted in pregnancy. When a woman is carrying a precious life inside her, her choices no longer affect herself alone. But the letter writer seems to think that a fetus is not worthy of protection. Of course she thinks that: It is the only way to harden one's conscience toward the murder that is abortion.

I do not agree with drug-testing someone without her consent, but the letter writer shows an even more callous disregard for the dignity of the individual than the doctors who secretly performed the drug test.
-- Caleb N. Diffell, Clearwater

Nominating process was proper

I am compelled to write in response to recent stories (Bar to investigate commission's actions, Sept. 29, Judicial panel chief tied to divorce case, Sept. 28, and Judicial board raises false allegations, Sept. 26) and an editorial (A kangaroo commission, Sept. 28) regarding consideration of applications and interviews of applicants by the 1st District Court of Appeal Judicial Nominating Commission.

First of all, the nominating commission is by no means a "kangaroo commission," as claimed in the editorial. The duty of judicial nominating commissions is to ensure that the most qualified of many well-qualified applications be submitted to the governor following a non-partisan screening process. All candidates are thoroughly scrutinized through the application and interview process, and hard questions must be asked of all judicial applicants. The interviews were conducted publicly. Representatives of the governor and the Legislature attended. No news media representatives chose to attend.

Additionally, the articles and editorial contain certain misinformation based on statements by some that the Times has simply accepted as true without further inquiry. First, it must be made absolutely clear that I have no personal relationship whatsoever with Charles Pillans III, who is a very highly respected attorney. Pillans, contrary to the false allegations in the editorial, has no ties whatsoever to the questioning of any applicant by the commission. My husband and law partner, William J. Sheppard, has known Pillans for many years and, indeed, wrote a letter supporting his application for a judicial vacancy prior to my appointment to the commission, but did not do so in support of Pillans' current application for the very reason of my membership on the commission.

Scott Makar was not targeted as a perceived rival of Pillans but, rather, questions based on matters of public record were asked of Makar, as of other applicants. Each applicant answered the difficult questions posed in the manner in which he chose, and the nine-member commission then deliberated and voted to determine the applicants whose names would be submitted for the governor to decide which to appoint to each judicial vacancy. Only one has complained.

In fact, as noted in the Times' news stories, the commission took the extraordinary step of considering Makar's position upon receipt of his request to do so, after having submitted its nominations to the governor. After consideration of Makar's letter, the commission decided not to alter the list of nominees.

I have attempted to conduct myself at all times in conformance with the highest ideals of my oath as an attorney and my duties as a member of a judicial nominating commission. Moreover, certain assertions raised -- contrary to what has been reported -- are not conclusively refuted, much less conclusively refuted in existing court files.

I have previously chosen not to discuss this situation publicly because I do not consider it appropriate for individual judicial nominating commissioners to discuss publicly the applications of any particular individuals. However, by public distribution of a single submission by one applicant, and certain reactions to that submission, I have become the target of unwarranted and unfair criticism, which also has been unfairly and falsely directed against others.

The judicial nominating process is designed to ensure a fair, yet searching, inquiry of applicants without regard to political considerations in order to ensure the highest quality and least politicized judiciary in this state. Unfortunately, it appears that the reaction to Makar's letter to the commission has been one of powerful political forces mobilizing in a manner that creates a potential risk to the constitutional independence of the Florida judiciary.
-- Elizabeth L. White, Jacksonville

Nursing home verdict is ridiculous

Re: Nursing home socked by jury, Sept. 28.

I just trust that each member of the jury in the $20-million nursing-home decision will learn the folly of his or her decision. Perhaps each of them will learn the extremely high cost of nursing homes when either they or a loved one must go into one. To award $20-million to the aunt of a man in his 60s is positively ridiculous.

A nursing home is most often the final step in a person's life. Many die there!

Litigation is edging closer to extortion. One nursing home I know of recently stated that its insurance rate had increased by 512 percent -- and that was before this absurd jury decision.
-- R. W. Patterson, Clearwater

A pejorative photo

For a number of days now, the St. Petersburg Times has printed that "wonderful" photograph of James Curtis, the man accused of suffocating 3-year-old Alex Boucher. Have you noticed that the photograph really makes a statement about Curtis?

If that picture is all you can find, perhaps you shouldn't run a photograph of him at all. Isn't the crime he is accused of bad enough that you need not try to show Curtis in the "special light" of that photograph? Maybe your staff could find the time to find another photograph of him? So far, your approach to this news story is insulting.
-- Dave Vickland, St. Pete Beach

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