No to infanticide

America has a terrible history concerning human rights by pretending that others not like us are not fully human – millions of indigenous people were considered “savages” and slaughtered, blacks were 3/5ths human and enslaved, women were not man’s equal and denied rights. Let’s not repeat our error with unborn children.

I support birth control and a woman’s right to use it. I totally agree with “My body my choice”. However, once a woman has a child inside of her, there is more than one body. I want to ignore this – it would be so convenient – but I cannot.

Abortion has had a head-on collision with science – we now know a child’s chromosomes are distinct from its mother’s at the moment of conception. We also know a complete individual exists in the embryo state – we can take the fertilized egg and put it in any surrogate mother and the same child will come out. Of course, the child in the embryo state has to develop, but the same can be said of a nursing one-year-old.

Although I don’t doubt his sincerity, Rick Johnson insinuated that being against abortion is racist (“The hypocrisy of it all,” Sept. 15). This is bizarre and uninformed. Abortion is the most egregious form of systemic racism in America. The abortion rate for black babies is 3 to 5 times higher (depending on what state) than the rate for white babies. I want these children to live.

Yes to birth control, no to infanticide.

William Schara

Spokane