40 Days for Life — verity vs. balderdash

As the co-director of the Spokane 40 Days for Life campaign,I'd like to respond to some of the issues Mr. Chausmer raised in his letter titled "40 Days infringes personal rights" in last week's Bulletin.

First, how could a peaceful, prayerful vigil, which doesn't block anyone's entrance to or exit from the clinic, infringe on personal rights in any way?

In his second paragraph, Mr. Chausmer said the 40 Days for Life folks "... marched to the grounds of Planned Parenthood and ‘peacefully' protested ..." Why was peacefully in quotes? Did he observe or hear about any less-than-peaceful activity during that time — or any other during the campaign? The quotes imply it was not peaceful.

A hallmark of 40 Days for Life is the peaceful, prayerful vigils (not protests) in front of abortion facilities. I would ask Mr. Chausmer to report any incidents of inappropriate activity directly to me at 40daysspokane@gmail.com, or to the police if warranted, because such activity isn't tolerated, and has never been observed in the history of 40 Days for Life.

In the third paragraph, Mr. Chausmer cites an article in the Sept. 29 Bulletin as saying 53 abortion workers were forced to quit their jobs. Not only were these abortion workers NOT forced- — or coerced -— to quit their jobs, the article on the 29th didn't say or imply that. These workers seem to have had a change of heart, but none was bullied, forced, or harassed into quitting.

Mr. Chausmer mentions the leaders of the national 40 Days for Life organization are mostly men, and asks how it's possible "... three men, who will never have even the slightest grasp on the emotional and physical scope of pregnancy ..." could guide this movement. By that logic, we should throw out Roe v. Wade because it was decided by an all-male Supreme Court.

Many laws, such as those against rape and murder, were decided by people who have no personal experience with these issues. Abraham Lincoln didn't own slaves, wasn't a slave, wasn't black and couldn't understand from personal experience the economic hardship freeing the slaves would cause many slave owners in the South. Yet he knew owning people was wrong, and he spoke up for those who, at that time in our nation's history, had no standing to speak for themselves. He gave voice to the voiceless.

Mr. Chausmer, in his last paragraph, suggests these decisions are about a woman's own body. There are already lots of laws regulating what women, and men, can do with their own bodies. There are laws regulating drug use, prostitution and indecent exposure, to name but a few. But the assertion that this has to do with a woman's own body gets to the heart of the matter.

If the fetus is not a human person, but is just a blob of cells or some non-human invading organism or tumor, then Mr. Chausmer is correct, and I would agree that choice belongs solely to the woman. But, if the fetus is a human person, as science, via DNA testing and ultrasound imaging among other methods shows it is, we're not talking about the woman's body, but another human person's body. Even without using scientific methods or resorting to faith, it's clear this is a separate body. Roughly half the population is male, which means pregnant women are pregnant with boys. That means that male fetus has a penis, which from logic alone should tell us it is not part of her body but rather a new, separate being.

Finally, Mr. Chausmer mentions scientific advancement as a reason not to be against abortion. For me, the fundamental issue in the abortion debate is this: What is the nature of the unborn? If a fetus is not a human person, I have no objection to any abortions.

I would even argue with one of Planned Parenthood's mantras -— to make abortion "safe, legal and rare." If the fetus is not a human person, why should abortion be rare? If the fetus is not a human person, then morality should have no more bearing on abortion than it does on tooth extractions, and there is no movement to make tooth extractions rare. (And there are no support groups for people who've had teeth extracted as there are for women who come to regret their abortions.)

However, if the fetus is a human person, and this is where science comes in, then I don't think we should be killing them. Embryology textbooks show the fetus is human in every way, and from the moment of conception has a complete and unique set of DNA. Sure, the fetus is smaller and looks different than an infant, just as an infant is smaller and looks different than a teenager, but we don't kill infants or teenagers. A fetus is dependent on his or her mother for survival, just as an adult with mental disabilities might be dependent on a caregiver, or one in a coma might be dependent on life-support machinery, but we don't kill dependent adults.

The fetus can't speak up for his or her rights, just like slaves during the Civil War, Jews in Nazi Germany, and blacks in the segregated South not too many decades ago (all groups considered non-persons or less than human). These groups were effectively voiceless and needed champions, such as Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr. and those who stood with them to give voice to the voiceless.