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Contents © 2003
by Jim Holman.
All rights reserved.

LETTERS
JANUARY 2003

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WHO SPEAKS FOR THE UNBORN?

Germany recently became the first nation to grant a constitutional right to animals: the words "and animals" were added to a provision obliging the state to respect and protect the dignity of human beings.

The irony of this magnanimous gesture must have resonated in synagogues throughout the world.

But this is not about German politics. It is about a class of human beings in our country who do not enjoy similar protection -- the innocent unborn. Since the passage of Roe v. Wade in 1973, some 1.3 million babies have been surgically aborted annually in the United States, and untold numbers have lost their lives through abortifacients.

How can the most generous and compassionate people on earth -- the citizens of the United States -- continue to tolerate this abominable situation, when we lose so many future citizens and go the way of Western Europe, which, because of widespread abortion, euthanasia and ever smaller families, is becoming a dying continent?

Abortion advocates cast their arguments almost exclusively in terms of a woman's personal freedom. They employ an endless array of euphemisms such as "choice," "reproduction freedom," "termination of pregnancy" and "removal of fetal parts;" but the dreaded word "abortion" is avoided like a plague.

The unborn child is lost in all these semantic gymnastics. It is actually the second person in the debate who, at 21 days, has its own beating heart and its own blood type. By six weeks it has its own brain capable of producing brain waves and, by 10 to 12 weeks, all of its organs are in place. In the light of this evidence, it is rationally indefensible to deny that the fetus is a human being.

Of all rights, the right to life is paramount. Other rights -- freedom of speech, peaceable public assembly and worship, are crucial, but the right to life is primary in the sense that other rights presuppose it. In 1993, the California Supreme Court, in People v. Davis, ruled that a third party who kills a fetus can be tried for murder, even if the fetus is pre-viable. The court hastened to add that this ruling did not affect a woman's right to an abortion. Why is the destruction of an unborn child by a third party called murder while its destruction by the woman carrying it is called an exercise in the constitutionally protected right to privacy? It is the same person that is destroyed. Since when does murder depend on which private party does the killing?

Women who seek abortions are not evil people. Many are in dire financial and emotional straits and see abortion as the only solution to an unplanned pregnancy. They are seldom given the opportunity to hear of the many free help organizations and crisis pregnancy centers that are available to them and their unborn child.

Once a month a group of 50 to 60 pro-lifers gathers near a Planned Parenthood facility in Sunnyvale to pray quietly and sing sacred and patriotic hymns for an end to abortion. Their attempts to counsel abortion-bound women entering the clinic are physically restrained by five or six clinic guards, who throw a protective ring around the women coming for abortions from the moment they get out of their cars until they enter the facility. One guard has shown up in the past with a large dog to add to the intimidation. Two or three abortion advocates often stand near the pro-life group pleading for support from passing motorists with signs and shouting anti-religious comments at the pro-lifers.

"Every child a wanted child" expresses a devoutly desired ideal, but it does not change the reality or the moral status of the unborn. An unborn child possesses as much dignity as a wanted child -- even as much as a lowly animal in Germany.

No less than 75 percent of the American people oppose partial birth abortion, but this grisly procedure, which kills the baby only minutes from birth, is stoutly defended by the pro-choice community. Is it any wonder that more and more doctors are reluctant to perform this operation and that 86 percent of the counties in this country no longer have abortion clinics?

Arthur J.Brew,
Mountain View


THE FAILURE OF SPANISH-LANGUAGE MEDIA

"Bush is for abortion!" a group of about 200 Latino Catholic school parents shouted unanimously when I asked them if President George W. Bush was pro-life or pro-abortion. Being a board member of Hispanics for Life, I was invited to speak at St. Joachim Parish in Costa Mesa to a Spanish-speaking audience about voting pro-life. I was shocked to find that this group of mostly Mexican immigrants believed that Democrats were pro-life and that Republicans were pro-abortion.

When I asked how they had reached this conclusion, one parent argued that Bush supports stem cell research. I clarified President Bush's stand while still baffled by the comment. This response meant that they were well aware of the issues; it was the candidates and their platforms that they were confused about. When I informed them that Loretta Sanchez was pro-abortion, it was as if I had drenched them with buckets of cold water. Some had doubts, and in order to convince them that their beloved Democratic politician was pro-abortion, I was forced to give them specific examples about her pro-abortion voting record.

Where did this group get their information? Spanish-language media. Most of the parents present had seen the television advertisement on Spanish-language television, where Loretta Sanchez voiced her support for Gray Davis. "Gray Davis is for abortion?" one parent asked me. After my yes to this question, there was only silence from a group that had been actively participating at the beginning of my presentation.

I live in a typical Latino home where, as long as there is someone home, the television is on, no matter what the programming. And when the television is not on, the radio most certainly is. My grandfather sits at the dinner table every evening reading headlines out loud. We Latinos rely mostly on these sources to receive all our information about politics. Based on this fact and the input I gathered from these 200 parents, I conclude that the Spanish-language media has failed miserably in their journalistic commitments to inform the people. Even a few weeks before the elections, the people are ignorant of both parties' platforms and the positions of elected officials. We have been seriously misinformed and let down.

While we Latinos do care about immigration issues championed most often by Democrats and most often showcased by the media, hands down, from our children to our grandparents, we would rather go hungry in our countries of origin, than see unborn babies die.

Diana Bennett,
received via e-mail


YOUR PAPER IS OFFENSIVE

I do not think your newspaper represents Catholic laity. I find your newspaper offensive due to the fact that it is constantly confrontational and centered on opposition to homosexuality. It does little to address other issues facing the world, general, and Christianity, in particular.

It is divisive!

John Kyle,
Hayward

Editor's note: To be divisive is not necessarily bad. Jesus Himself said, "I have come to bring a sword, not peace. For I have come to set a man at variance with his father, and a daughter with her mother, and a daughter-in-law with her mother-in-law." Mr. Kyle's problem with us cannot be that we are divisive or confrontational (is not his letter a confrontation?); his problem with us must be that he disagrees with us.

I deny that the Faith is "centered" on opposition to homosexuality. We are centered on the Catholic Church, her teachings, traditions and culture. If we deal frequently with the topic of homosexuality, it is not because we have brought it up. (I, for one, find the whole subject distasteful and would rather not deal with it.) It is the "gay-rights" cadre, both in secular society and the Church, which keep bringing it up. If they back off from their activism, we'll back off from our opposition.


YOU HAVE DEFAMED BISHOP SHEEN

"He who steals my purse steals only trash, but he who steals my good name steals all my treasure."

Dead men cannot rise to defend their reputations against calumny and slander, so we who remain on this side of eternity must arise to the occasion and do it for them.

A letter to the editor in the November 2002 Faith ["Bishop Sheen A 'Screaming Queen'?"] impugns and maligns the character of the late Fulton Sheen and, by innuendo, accuses him of immoral thoughts and unchaste conduct. It is grossly unjust and totally wrong for a writer to pen such innuendo, and also wrong for your editor to allow such a vicious assertion to be published, let alone in the pages of a so-called Catholic newspaper.

Bishop Sheen's loyalty to the faith, his love for the Blessed Mother of Christ and, in particular, his compassion and outreach to the suffering and the poor while he was director of the Pontifical Society for the Propagation of the Faith, were like a beacon in a black night. In particular, his compassion and outreach to the unemployed poor blacks in the city of Rochester, New York, are recalled by scores years after his death. His efforts on behalf of the unemployed and the poor in the face of corporate opposition from Eastman Kodak Company at the time are memories and a vivid example he left for us to emulate to follow.

Edward Petko, M.D.,
Sherman Oaks

Editor's note: The letter to which Doctor Petko refers ended with these words: "Most gay people I know believe our beloved and saintly Bishop Fulton J. Sheen was a 'screaming queen,' whether or not he ever acted out on any homosexual inclinations." It is not a statement of fact, but merely of what some people think. Given that the people who think it are hardly reputable judges (after all, they are continually making such outrageous claims), I did not, and do not, think the statement hurt Bishop Sheen's reputation one iota.

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