IN THEORY:Was the recent abortion ruling wise?

The U.S. Supreme Court recently upheld a law banning a method used in some midterm abortions. Writing for the majority, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy said the government cannot prohibit all abortions but that it “may use its voice and its regulatory authority” to discourage women from terminating pregnancies. He also noted there were other ways doctors could perform the midterm abortions. What do you think of the high court’s decision?

We wonder why the rest of the world abhors America. One of the reasons is they fear our overindulgence and self-indulgence. Abortion is a question of convenience, not of choice.

How could any civilized nation consider legalizing a procedure where a near viable fetus (“baby” in my world) is pulled partially from a mother’s womb up to its neck (once the head comes out the doctors are obligated to save its life) and then, as quoted in the Los Angeles Times, “doctors collapse the fetus’ skull, or drain its content, to permit its removal”?

Have you ever seen an abortion through an ultrasound? I have. It is horrid. The child I saw actually tried to get away from the device that was trying to suck its limbs off. I am sorry to be so graphic, but this is awful stuff. This procedure — D&E; is its quaint name — is used on infants far younger than those attacked during the D&X; procedure ruled on today.

My goal, though, is not to win the hearts of our legislators because I don’t believe morality can be legislated. My goal is to catch one raindrop at a time and give it hope that one day it, too, can be a rainbow again.

RIC OLSEN

Lead Pastor

The Beacon

Anaheim

This is a difficult issue. While I support a woman’s right to choose, I admit the late-term abortions, while rare, are difficult to imagine. I don’t think any of this is an easy choice, but I do think that the doctor and the patient should be the ultimate decision-makers, not the legislators or the courts.

I’m sure that many medical-ethics experts have well-thought-out arguments on both sides of the issue, and I think their input would be helpful.

Ultimately, we must know that the spirit is not finite. It is forever seeking expression. And any fetuses terminated by abortion are still alive in spirit. God is not judging anyone. God is simply working by means of each of us to live in peace and know that all is well. Those who would promote guilt, shame or fear have no place in this debate. Theirs is a world of domination and moral penalties. It’s time we grow out of such ways of thinking.

PASTOR JIM TURRELL

Center for Spiritual

Discovery

Costa Mesa

We can learn from the wisdom of the rabbis almost 2,000 years ago. The Mishnah of the Talmud states that if a woman has a lifethreatening difficulty in childbirth, one dismembers the embryo in her limb by limb, because her life takes precedence over its life.

However, once its head or most of its body has emerged, it may not be destroyed, for we do not set aside one life for another. There is a logical reason for this. Judaism feels that a life becomes a life only when it breathes its first breath. This was the case with the biblical Adam in Genesis. He became a life when he breathed his first breath, and he died when he breathed his last breath.

Therefore, Judaism permits abortions in certain cases, especially if the mother’s or child’s life is to be severely handicapped or compromised physically or mentally. For example, a case of rape or incest. Judaism often asks, Is there a present danger to either party?

Judaism does not see abortion as murder. Judaism does not regard the fetus as a life, but a potential life. The Talmud determines that the first 40 days of conception is simply water. Most rabbis agree that the soul enters the body not at conception but somewhat after the first 40 days, which with proper reason gives the woman the right to abort. Abortion, however, is not an alternative to birth control. It should not be done on a whim but with much thought and as a last alternative to life. However, I think the recent ruling was wrong, and it is moving in the wrong direction. And in the long run, it could result in limiting a woman’s control over her pregnancy.

RABBI MARC RUBENSTEIN

Temple Isaiah

Newport Beach

The court’s decision approving a ban on midterm methods of ending pregnancies has to be driven by the religious beliefs of the majority of the court, most of whom were appointed by presidents who put religious views as a priority in making their appointments, all in an attempt to eventually overturn Roe vs. Wade and force their religious beliefs on the entire population.

But religious beliefs often prove to be wrong, as exemplified by the heresy trial of Galileo for showing that the earth revolved around the sun. At the time, speaking for the Inquisition, Cardinal Bellarmine said that to assert that the earth revolves around the sun is as erroneous as to claim that Jesus was not born of a virgin.

Only a woman knows whether she is mentally and physically ready to give birth and raise a child. It is none of the government’s business.

It has been shown that unwanted children are most apt to become disturbed and problem-causing adults, so letting the woman make the decision makes sense.

Along with global warming, we are faced with many worldwide problems that are all made seriously worse as a result of overpopulation.

Water tables are being depleted, rivers are drying up, food fish are disappearing, traditional farming areas are in danger of becoming barren, etc. While one birth can be a blessing, a million births in an overpopulated land can be a disaster. Overpopulation is truly the ultimate child abuse.

JERRY PARKS

Member

Humanist Assn.

of Orange County

I think women and their doctors should make their own decisions about an abortion, free from interference from politicians and judges.

The majority of Americans consistently support legal abortion, though most would also like to reduce the need for abortion by improving birth control and providing resources for women who do want to have a baby. Yet there is a determined and vocal minority who want to re-criminalize abortion or at least block access any way they can, and they have won in Gonzales vs. Carhart.

This court decision will affect fewer than 2,500 women per year, mostly indigent and young women who tend to have more trouble obtaining early abortions. It is a fraction of a percent (.17) of the total number of abortions performed each year, according to a Guttmacher Institute study in 2000. We should be alarmed about the direction of this current Supreme Court.

The Zen tradition encourages each person to make his or her decisions based on meditative awareness in interpreting the ethical precepts. Each person must make the choice and bear the consequences for every action.

It is significant that the only woman on the Supreme Court, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, read her dissent from the 5-4 decision out loud from the bench. She noted that the ban on intact dilation and extraction goes against the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

REV. DR. DEBORAH BARRETT

Zen Center of Orange County

Costa Mesa

For 2,000 years in our Western culture, written into our own nation’s Constitution and Bill of Rights, the absolute value of honoring and protecting the right of each person to live has been enshrined as an inalienable and unequivocal prerogative.

Jan. 22, 1973, was the day of infamy when the Supreme Court presumed to alter nature and repeal morality. That fateful decision has had grave effects and rendered millions of unborn defenseless before the law and has created a system of selective justice whereby some members of society shall decide who will live and who will die.

The high court’s decision to uphold the ban on partial-birth abortions is a victory for life. May it usher in a new era where we once again hear the first cry of a newborn baby instead of the deathly, hospital silence of another child who will neither live or love.

MSGR. LAWRENCE J. BAIRD

Our Lady of

Mount Carmel Church

Newport Beach

Those who decry government intervention in our lives are often first to demand that its coercive power intrude on the most intimate decision of millions of its citizens.

Why should adherents of one belief be compelled to adopt the theology of a faith they do not share?

Until the 19th century, it was accepted that the fetus was not alive during the first months of pregnancy. When the mother “felt life,” when “the babe doth stir” and “quicken,” the baby “came alive.” While the Roman Catholic Church always judged abortion to be immoral, the penance for a late abortion was more rigorous than for an early abortion, since it was only a late abortion that killed a “living” baby.

St. Augustine himself pronounced early-stage abortion allowable, saying it was not until the fetus assumed a “human shape” that abortion became impermissible. For centuries, the Church’s teaching was that a male fetus did not become human until 40 days, while a female fetus reached humanity at 80 days, and that until then abortion was tolerable.

The Church position of today was not always its position. Since our understanding of life’s creation is so restricted, prompting varying definitions of life and homicide, should the government arbitrate between the positions, favoring one that has been revised due to human fallibility?

There is only one constant amid the divergences of views — the mother is pregnant and faces an unacceptable, if not terrifying prospect. The choice to not assume the lifelong obligations of parenthood should not be overridden by governmental dictate or persuasion by politicians and jurists. And unless the woman is Catholic, she should not have to follow the dictates of Pope Pius IX.

RABBI MARK S. MILLER

Temple Bat Yahm

Newport Beach

Legislation concerning abortions cannot address the root issue from the heart. All human life is sacred from its inception until death and thereafter.

All proposed legislation regarding abortions must take special care to see that individual conscience is respected and that the responsibility of every person to reach informed decisions is honored.

The Episcopal Church supports the right of every woman to have a medically safe abortion. As Christians, we believe that if this right is exercised, it should be used only in extreme situations. We emphatically oppose abortion as a means of birth control, family planning, sex selection or mere convenience.

As a priest, I urge those considering abortion to examine the dictates of their consciences in prayer, to seek the counsel of their family and faith community, and, where appropriate, the sacramental life of this Church. Living responsibly and sacramentally can accomplish what government cannot.

(THE VERY REV’D CANON)

PETER D. HAYNES

Saint Michael & All Angels

Episcopal Church

Corona del Mar