Dear Editor,

Americans today are sharply divided. This division rests not so much on our differing political views or even on the moral directives these views rest on but on our individual interpretations of the moral directives we accept and follow.

Overall, we are in an epic tug-of-war in which each side is dug in, anchored on the left by Biden, anchored on the right by Trump; on the left, fear of the end of democracy and the rise of demagogism, on the right, fear of the end of democracy and the rise of socialism.

One of the specific issues of this tug-of-war is that the left is dug in on the presumed virtue of legal abortion, and the right is dug in on the presumed virtue of criminalizing abortion. The left represents moral rectitude tempered by moral frailty, the right represents moral rectitude tempered by moral frailty.

Both sides of this tug-of-war over abortion are well represented by educated people, intelligent people, people of every religion or no religion, indigenous and foreign-born Americans and so on. Where does this conception of the evil of abortion come from?

Consider: Is the expression pro-life not a loaded misnomer? and because it disregards the fact that the pro-choicer is for — is pro — the life and welfare of the expectant mother and the child she may bear every bit as much as the pro-lifer is concerned with the life and welfare of the embryo. The debate is over which life is more important.

Consider: Those who believe in God must admit where He stands on the issue of abortion: he frequently allows or directs mothers to spontaneously abort embryos with a frequency that cannot be ignored. Presumably, He does so for a reason. So how can one who believes in God and his actions believe that there can be no valid reason for abortion?

Consider: As far as the claim that life begins at conception, recall this: the human egg and human sperm are already alive before conception, so if aborting a conceived life is considered a murderous sin, it logically follows that the death of living eggs, subsequently discharged from the womb, must be considered suicide, and the death of living sperm following non-reproductive spillage, must be considered a degree of murder. If it is further maintained by the pro-lifer that it is only human life they are against being aborted, understand that the human egg and human sperm, in their association or singly, have the potential to develop into nothing but human life. So as far as human life goes there is no distinction between the conceived life and the sperm and the egg.

Consider: Those who share the view that women are entitled to choose on the issue of abortion are not for abortion, they’re against a life of financial burden for impoverished parents who are already struggling to feed and support the children they already have; they’re not for abortion, they’re against the suffering of a raped child whose young body is not mature enough to withstand the physical labor of giving birth; they’re not for abortion, they’re against the matter of a pregnant mother being legally obligated to carry the embryo in her womb to term despite medical evidence that the birth will be at the cost of the pregnant woman’s own life; they’re not for abortion, they’re against the fact that before abortion was made legal, tens of thousands of desperate women died from infection acquired from illegal back-alley abortions — and will do so again if Roe vs. Wade is overturned. Aren’t the above matters worthy of canceling by abortion a small insensible mass of embryonic tissue? (We argue here for the first and the occasional second trimester abortion; a third trimeseter abortion is a separate issue not addressed in this essay).

This is an appeal to the single-issue voters (those whose single-issue is to overturn Roe vs. Wade) to consider that the next president has a multitude of other issues to deal with. The single-issue voter must be cognizant of the other important issues facing our nation, issues the incumbent president has admitted through word and action that he is uninterested in solving: global warming, health care, racism, the unharnessed pandemic, foreign affairs, poverty, unity, the looming fear of war.

Unless this incumbent president addresses and begins to solve these other issues, and soon — which, according to all evidence to the contrary, he will not — the illegality of abortion will be a non-issue, irrelevant in the long run, and because without progress on these other critical issues, there eventually won’t be any live or capable or interested women left to bear children.

Joe Priddy,

Scandia