Don’t call life ‘unwanted’

Most people are appalled at the thought of the innocent being executed by the death penalty. Yet that is what every abortion entails, including pre-born humans conceived in rape or incest. As for these small humans being unwanted, please don't say that to the infertile longing for a child.

— Nancy Dunne, Hometown

Fighting for rights

I find it strange that my body is up for national debate, again, and what I can or cannot do with it. Why are women's bodies again something that needs to be defended, and our minds represented as not intelligent enough or strong enough to make our own decisions? This is much more than just abortion rights. This is about reverting to staid stereotypes that women are weak and need guidance to ensure the right decision is made (in line with political agendas). Whatever happened to “pro-woman,” the right to choose abortion or the right not to? We are revisiting the ’60s, and I along with many other women and men will fight for the liberty to decide my own health care.

— Susan Landwer, Wilmette

A different ‘What if’

Letter writer Kathleen Melia (“Consequences of abortion,” May 17) is totally correct that we would have suffered a great loss if Leonardo da Vinci’s mother had decided to have an abortion.

However, one can easily make the counterargument that the world would have been much better off if Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin had been aborted. How many potential artists, inventors, musicians, writers, poets, architects, etc., never had the opportunity to make their contribution to humanity due to the murderous campaigns led by these two psychopathic leaders?

— Larry Vigon, Chicago

Sex ed, birth control

The Alabama law banning abortion even in cases of rape and incest would be slightly more palatable if it included state support for science-based sex education and better access to birth control. Lack of those two things causes unwanted pregnancies and the resulting need for abortion.

If Republicans in Alabama and other states enacting abortion bans really wanted to decrease abortion, they would support sex education and provide better access to birth control. When they do that, they will have a lot fewer abortions to ban.

— Bob Barth, Chicago

‘Pro-life’ hypocrisy

The same people who want to ban abortions would be the very last to adopt and support abandoned or unwanted children. William F. Buckley Jr., a flaming conservative, said the greatest threat to our nation is illegitimate, unwanted children.

— Richard Nolan, Park Ridge

Support ends at birth

The same so-called right-to-lifers who oppose abortion can't wait to support the next useless war or massive defense budget, as well as resenting those poor and less fortunate who must depend on the government for help.

Love the fetus, hate the child. What hypocrisy!

— Ken Kramer, Glen Ellyn

Autonomy over health care

I proclaim “hooray for abortion” in the same sense I proclaim “hooray for brain surgery, hooray for prosthetic limbs and hooray for hear​t transplants.” Whatever improves the health of people is their business. I would no more restrict their efforts of securing better health and life options than I would allow them to restrict mine. Nor would I ever use underhanded means to subvert their constitutional right to privacy needed to embrace such medical attention.


Alas, red-state legislators are doing both with their restrictive and likely unconstitutional laws virtually outlawing all abortions for women who are without the means to dash off to a progressive state like Illinois to get what they most certainly deserve right at home. These laws put millions of women in those states at risk of having to run a cruel gantlet of shame, poverty and possible back-alley practitioners to obtain possibly the most basic right a human being is entitled to.

I'm not trying to convert anyone who is anti-abortion to applaud abortion. I simply encourage them to not ever have one if they find themselves pregnant; counsel their loved ones to do the same; even stump for a constitutional amendment to overturn Roe v. Wade, if that's their fancy. But an end run around the Constitution to inflict untold pain on the have-nots in desperate straits earns my fervent opposition.

— Walt Zlotow, Glen Ellyn