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First letter:
Women are fighters. We began the fight for the right to vote in 1848 at Seneca Falls at the first women’s rights convention.
We won in 1920 with a federal law giving women the right to vote. We began a fight for equal rights in 1923, trying to pass the Equal Rights Amendment giving women the equality they deserve. And we are still fighting for that today. It is outrageous that women still do not make an equal paycheck for equal work. And now we are revisiting the entire Roe v. Wade debate, even though it was decided almost 40 years ago that women deserve the right to privacy and to make that very private decision without the interference from the government.
Frankly, I can’t believe we are still fighting the battles that our mothers and their mothers fought more than 40 years ago. I am outraged that we are facing this struggle in the 21st century. Have we not learned from anything from our tumultuous history? Our nation has dominated, oppressed, subjugated, and overpowered all those that were not in the majority; in other words, everyone who wasn’t white and male. I cannot sit by while the pattern appears to be repeating. We fought this before, and we’ll do it again.
Bridgette Case Guild
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First reply:
This is in reply to Bridgette Case Guild’s letter in the Chronicle some time ago.
She is complaining that Roe v. Wade is still being challenged after some 40 years. Whereas the women’s right to vote was settled in 1920 and is not being challenged anymore.
I will try to explain the difference to you. The fact that women were not allowed to vote before the 1920s did not result in people’s lives being lost. You also state the fact of equal pay for women. I have no problem with either of these. I agree with you. But Roe v. Wade is completely different. Here we are talking about human life being destroyed. In fact, a million a year in the U.S.
It seems that you Pro Choice people only talk about the mothers’ rights. Do you not realize that there is another human life involved? You people never seem to realize this.
This is the reason that Roe v. Wade is constantly being challenged, and it should be until it is overturned. It’s one of the greatest curses of our country.
Bernard Cole
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Second reply:
In response to Mr. Cole’s letter on June 4, why is it that men think they have the right to tell a woman what to do with her own body? And don’t forget that it takes the pregnant woman to give that fetus life, if she so chooses to do. We as women don’t go around telling men that they need to go have a vasectomy because you make ugly children or any such thing. Women have all theses rights except the right to do with our body as we please. And keep your religious views and morals to yourself. It’s my uterus and my life! Stay out of it!
Susan Guinn
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My analysis:
Ms. Guinn's letter captured my attention for its total absence of logical thought. Her letter is a play-by-play textbook example of stringing a few bumper sticker slogans together. She makes absolutely no attempt to engage the issues or make a refutation of a single point raised by Mr. Cole, instead choosing to spout rhetoric.
1) "...men think they have the right to tell a woman what to do with her own body..." Unfortunately for Ms. Guinn, it is government that tells all of us what we can do with our own bodies. From motorcycle helmets, to soft drink sizes, or nudity, government regularly exercises power over your body.
It isn't MEN who want to control you, Ms. Guinn, it is government. I wonder,are you consistent in your objections to these other controls on your body?
2) "... it takes the pregnant woman to give that fetus life, if she so chooses to do." I am so happy that Ms. Guinn reveals this little-known fact to us. Who knew that pregnant women give birth to living creatures?
One little teeny correction, however. Once a woman is pregnant, the fetus already has life. Oh, and it takes more than a woman to produce a fetus. You know... a man.
3) "...We as women don’t go around telling men that they need to go have a vasectomy..." Aside from the fact the women DO tell men to go get a vasectomy, it isn't the same thing. A fetus represents the product of conception, not the process. A proper use of this vasectomy comparison would be to a woman's fallopian tubes, not her unborn baby.
Further, no one is telling Ms. Guinn to prevent her pregnancy (in the same manner, a vasectomy prevents a man from being fertile). Just the opposite. Pro-lifers aren't interested in keeping her from being fertile, they are wanting her to continue the process already begun and deliver the life already growing in her.
Perhaps in the horrific pro-life world where mothers would not be allowed to kill their children in utero, a pregnant woman is indeed being forced to do something. Why is this uniquely offensive to abortion advocates? Parents are forced to feed and care for their 2 year old toddler. I am required to feed and care for my dog. A doctor is forced to treat an ill patient. We are all forced to care for the poor via the tax code. A lot of us are being force to do a lot of things for others every day.
And, all of us are required to not injure other parties. A good portion of the law enjoins us from acting in ways that cause damage to others. I suspect Ms. Guinn would generally agree that there should be laws that protect people. I would suggest to Ms. Guinn that where those people happen to be located is not relevant.
4) "Women have all theses rights except the right to do with our body as we please." Um, Ms. Guinn. Abortion is LEGAL. Or are there some other rights involving your body you think you deserve but don't presently possess?
4) "Women have all theses rights except the right to do with our body as we please." Um, Ms. Guinn. Abortion is LEGAL. Or are there some other rights involving your body you think you deserve but don't presently possess?
In addition, this statement is false. Neither men nor women can do with their bodies as they please. They cannot ingest illegal drugs, sell themselves for prostitution, or sell their organs. I'm sure Ms. Guinn can think of other examples.
5) "...keep your religious views and morals to yourself." Advice that she apparently is not required to heed herself. After all, she just wrote a letter to the editor expressing her moral outrage that someone would suggest that abortion is wrong.
6) "It’s my uterus and my life!" This narcissistic view is emblematic with what wrong with contemporary society. However, it's her life only to the extent that it doesn't impede or damage other lives. And that is the crux of the matter. There is no question that a pregnant woman's womb contains a life, and there is no dispute that it is genetically human.
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Ms. Guinn is in essence making a property rights argument. We certainly can agree that the fundamental property rights issue is who owns our bodies. In a free society, government has no say in what we legally do with our own property as a matter of unalienable rights. However, these rights are not absolute.
Let's analyze the issue by way of analogy. Suppose you own a property, perhaps a home. As a matter of right, your possession of this property entitles you to make decisions about it unimpeded by government. But the right is not absolute. Your property rights can be and are diminished, often as a matter of law.
For example, when you rent out your property, the rights of those who occupy the property supersede some of your rights. The tenant has property rights, even though it is your property. The tenant has a right to occupy and possess the property. The tenant has an expectation of privacy, of the enjoyment of the property for his legal purposes. He also enjoys the right to be free from arbitrary eviction. All these rights are established by law.
Indeed, in many cities, you cannot refuse to rent to tenants for a variety of reasons, which means that your tenant has a legal right to rent from you even though you might not be a willing participant.
This means you cannot act upon your property rights if the action violates the rights of your tenant. Certainly, you cannot kill your tenant, no matter how unpleasant he may be or how much his presence inconveniences you.
So the key question is, does a fetus possess rights, including property rights? The courts have ruled that the fetus does not have rights, but that does not settle the matter. In the past the courts have ruled that owning slaves is constitutional. The courts do err. I think they have erred in negating the property rights of the unborn child by simply deeming the child "not alive."
This is a legal status, of course. Medically speaking, the fetus is quite alive, and clearly human. True, its does not have the ability to survive outside the womb, but neither does a baby, if left to its own devices. And yes, a fetus is and will be inconvenient. But again, so is a child. And maybe the fetus causes emotional distress. So do children. The only difference between a fetus and a baby that is born is its location.
The fetus' location in the womb means it is owed a duty by its mother to exercise due care to protect the fetus' pre-eminent property rights. A woman, by becoming pregnant, has ceded certain aspects of her own property rights because of the rights of the occupant of her womb. The presence of the fetus diminishes the rights of the woman, and rightly so.
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