Letter: Don't heap tragedy on top of tragedy

Reading the Mailbox page of Sept. 17, I was reminded of an incident that happened several years ago while working in Denver. I worked with a young woman who was 22 years old at the time.

She had prepared some corned beef hash the previous evening for her and her husband and had brought the leftovers for her lunch. She had just begun eating it when a salesman came into the lunch room and remarked that it looked like cat food. At that moment, even though she had made it herself and eaten it the previous evening, she could no longer eat it, as it did resemble cat food. She went without lunch that day. I had always thought that she was an intelligent and well centered young woman. I was forced to reevaluate my position.

It was Alicia Smalley's article that brought this memory back. If the suggestion that food that she had prepared resembled cat food could make a woman lose her appetite, I can only imagine how uncomfortable carrying a perpetrator's child could make a woman feel.

As for Mr. John Ensign's comments that these victim-related events should be assumed "bad choices" of that woman should be blamed in any way in these instances, certainly strays far from the mark if this indeed is what he intended to say. His comment that heaping tragedy upon tragedy by aborting those pregnancies is most certainly spot on the mark.

Let's examine some facts about abortion. Alicia Smalley should know that 5 percent or less of aborted pregnancies are caused by rape or incest. Another small portion is because of life threatening circumstances to the mother during the pregnancy of the birthing event. The greatest portion of abortions are because the pregnancy is simply unwanted ( an accident) or that the child may be disabled in some way.

Given the fact that by the time most women realize that they are pregnant the fetus has developed to the point that it has a brain and beating heart, the argument that it isn't a human life has to be assumed flawed. Knowing also that every rancher who has livestock that is known to have conceived is forced to consider it as two pieces of livestock by the IRS.

Knowing these things, let's consider the logic that allows a woman to terminate a human life. "If a human life is forced upon me, or that a human life that dwells within me is deemed by myself to be an inconvenience to myself or my family, I then have the right to terminate this life at any point."

This is what it really boils down to, and it's just this sort of 'stinkin' thinkin' that has led me to and kept me of the opinion that Aug. 26, 1920 is the darkest day in the history of our country. For your information, Aug. 26 of this year marked the 80th anniversary of the women's suffrage movement; the beginning of political empowerment of the woman in this country.

WILLIAM KELLY JONES

Gardnerville