The Court’s Abortion Stance Is a Mistake

* Re “Gender Gap, Republicans and Abortion,” July 9 Orange County Voices:

Rarely do I find myself steaming just because I disagree with the opinion of another. However, I made an exception in the case of Eileen Padberg’s column.

I am pregnant and from the moment I saw my daughter’s tiny developed body in a sonogram, and now as I feel her move, kick and even hiccup within me, I know she is not just a part of my body, she is a separate, live human being.

ANGELA O’NEIL

Costa Mesa

* Eileen Padberg says that white, male Republicans would be outraged by any attempt to eliminate the right to bear arms and to religious freedom.

Indeed, they would be, as those rights are explicitly spelled out in the Constitution. But has Padberg actually read the Roe vs. Wade decision or the one it is based on, Griswold vs. Connecticut?

She would see the the so-called right to choose was found, in Justice Harry Blackmun’s words, in the “penumbra and emanations of the Constitution.”

So why have courts ruled for reasonable exceptions to two rights explicitly enumerated in the Constitution, but a right that can be found only by a fishing expedition is so sacrosanct that no exception is possible, even one that would call partial-birth abortion what it is: infanticide?

TOM NEVEN

Colorado Springs, CO

* I must take exception to the arguments Padberg made, particularly with respect to abortion and what she argues, wrongly, about a woman’s “right to choose.”

The U.S. Supreme Court in 1973 committed judicial overreach in reading into the U.S. Constitution a right to privacy and legitimizing, however morally wrong, a woman’s decision to kill her child in utero.

The right to life is an inalienable God-given right. Each of us is created by God in His image and likeness and no court has the moral authority to deny that right to an innocent human being no matter how it may twist logic and reason to justify such killing under the guise of protecting “privacy.”

Every woman has the right to choose--to choose to conceive or not to conceive. Once that choice is made, a new life is formed in the womb, and the woman’s only legitimate, moral choice is to carry the new life to term.

At conception, there are two distinct human beings--each has an unassailable right to life. The mother-to-be carries the child in her womb much the same as she would carry the child in her arms after birth.

Padberg claims Republican women were responsible for electing Bill Clinton.

I assume Padberg was one of those women. Looking back on the 7 1/2 years of a most immoral and unethical administration, those who voted for Clinton, women and men, should be ashamed of themselves.

Abortion is the most extreme act of violence against the child and a gross abuse of those women who are seduced into making that decision.

Until the people of this country accept that and seek change in the laws to support a corresponding change of heart, violence, racism and crimes of all sorts will continue because we promote death to the most innocent and defenseless of us all as acceptable and legal.

I pray Padberg will reconsider her position on this issue.

GERRY TINTLE

Santa Fe Springs