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Pro-choice advocate’s logic can be found in the past

To the editor:

Many of the arguments George Fisher uses in his letter last week against pro-lifers were used against anti-slavery advocates, i.e., abolitionists, in the 19th century, such as: you abolitionists are dictators, telling us slave-owners what to do with our property and our lives (it’s my body to do with as I wish); slavery is approved by the U.S. Supreme Court (which it was, in the awful Dred Scott decision) and is therefore legal, so it’s OK (abortion is legal by Supreme Court edict so it must be OK); there won’t be enough people and resources to take care of all these freed slaves who will be released into dire poverty; are you abolitionists going to hire and take care of all these freed slaves? (Are you pro-lifers going to adopt all these unwanted children?) Also, without slavery our southern plantation economy will be destroyed, so you abolitionists should mind your own business, you don’t understand our culture at all.

And if, back then, my friend says “I am not pro-slavery, I am pro-choice on slavery; keep slavery legal and let property owners make up their own minds and their own decisions as to whether or not to own slaves.Abolitionists need to improve their arguments and convince slave owners to their position,” I would say, “sir you are basically pro-slavery by allowing slavery to continue.” Similarly pro-choice is pro-abortion.

Of course, the answer to the slavery controversy, in the Emancipation Proclamation of President Abraham Lincoln, was that slavery is just wrong, period, and as of now it is stopped, even without every question answered, and it is stopped despite the Dred Scott decision, which is now reversed. Roe v. Wade is the Dred Scott decision of our era and should be reversed. It’s a baby in the womb, as modern ultrasound and fetal photography have made crystal clear, and the protection of the law against murder applies here. On another point with the George Fisher letter, so-called biblical “contradictions” are merely emergency dispensations. For instance, I don’t say that I’m going to run red lights when I feel like it, because the law is phony; it allows fire trucks to run red lights all the time. Nor do I say “Thou shalt not kill” is a contradiction since my neighbor killed a violent intruder into his home in self-defense and got away with it, or a veteran killed on the battlefield in defense of freedom. In these cases, the law still stands, noble and true, without fear of contradiction.

Rev. William M. Weary

Pastor, Sacred Heart Church, Lewistown and St. Jude

Thaddeus Church, Mifflintown

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