Letters: Life ends at birth

The Coyote finally catches and kills the Road Runner in the “Family Guy” version of the cartoon. When a friend asks Coyote about his plans after Road Runner’s demise, Coyote says,” I don’t know. I spent twenty years chasing that damn bird…”

Now that the 50-year conservative quest to kill Roe v. Wade is upon us, what is next? Will pro-lifers join Uncle Sam and the rest of us in helping their “saved’ children become healthy, happy, and productive Americans?

Not if the past is prologue. Two hundred House Republicans voted “NO” on emergency legislation to resolve shortages of baby formula. Republicans voted against the continued Child Tax Credit legislation that lifted thirty percent of our poor children and families out of poverty during the pandemic. And the conservative court has thrown our country back into the Wild, Wild West with its gun carry decision as scores of children are shot to death month after month.

Why do pro-lifers sacrifice children on the altar of politics? Isn’t life sacred? Or does life end at birth?

Planned Parenthood helps women to safely carry full term. Obamacare helps pay for prenatal care, baby delivery, and post-natal care. Most Americans support school breakfast and lunch programs, preschool education, and after school programs. Pro-life representatives vote “NO”. Is this how conservatives will “save” lives?

Incest and rape victims will be violently victimized again through forced labor to give birth to children that they can’t afford to raise in households and communities that will shame them. Should the rapist have custody and/or visitation rights of the “saved” child? Who will financially support the “saved” kids while the rapists are in prison? Who will protect the “saved” children from lifetimes of emotional and physical trauma? Pro-lifers?

And there are those conservatives who fervently favor laws that prevent abortions even to save the life of the mother. Self-righteous conservatives would allow that adult female to die, and maybe the child, too, to prove their conservative credibility. How is this pro-life?

Why do conservatives enjoy abusing women? What rights do women have in the conservative dystopia, if any?

Now that fictional James has been “saved”, will he continue to be “saved?” How? Adoption touches too few children. And pretending that God will take care of “saved” children is a pass-the-buck cop-out. What’s the plan?

I’m pro-choice. But once a woman decides to give birth, I’m more pro-life than most pro-lifers that I know. I’m glad to financially support government programs that help children and poor families. It’s the compassionate human thing to do. And it saves us taxpayer dollars in the long run. Charities help but national funding is more effective.

I heard the president of the National Right to Life March group interviewed after the overturn of Roe v. Wade. She said let’s talk. After fifty years talk is cheap. What’s the plan? (She suggested abortion pills as an option. Really?)

Will self-righteous conservatives save children from being “saved”?

Or does life end at birth?

— Charles Wieland,

Madera