Opinion on Coverage of Abortion Issue

After reading your article “Playing It Safe,” in the South Bay Metro section (Oct. 14), I was angry. In fact, every time I hear the words “pro-life demonstration,” I cringe. Where do these people come from anyway? Who gave them the right to tell a woman or a woman-child what she should or shouldn’t do with her body? It’s none of their business, Constitution or no Constitution. If an individual does not believe in abortion, then by all means she shouldn’t have one. But just as our Constitution gives one the right not to have an abortion, it also gives another the option of having one if she so chooses.

All these pro-lifers should get off their high horses because when that unwanted child is born, where are they going to be? When that mother is unable to work for her child, because she is still a child, where will they be? I’ll tell you where they’ll be: at home patting themselves on their backs for having such great warped, idealistic minds.

Now I know some on your staff and many of your readers may think I’m a cold-hearted, sterile woman, but I’m not. In fact, I have a beautiful niece and two adorable nephews; I don’t think I’ll ever stop looking at them in wonderment when I think what miracles they are. But by having them in my life I also know that caring for them is no walk in the park. I’m 20 and still have a few years before I will be unselfish enough to have a child of my own. Yet if by some chance I were faced with a child in my womb tomorrow, I would want the option of abortion to be available, because I don’t know what I would do. But I am quite positive that I wouldn’t want some holier-than-thou, red-faced ignoramus shouting at me, (telling me) what I should or shouldn’t do with my body.

Please, if you put nothing else of my letter in your paper, at least put this:

Live your life and don’t try to live someone else’s. Because you are not the one who is going to have to live with the memory. If they (women who have abortions) can sleep at night with this knowledge, then you should be able to do the same.

ALISANN G. REINER

Lakewood