LETTERS: DIVISIONS ABOUT LIFE

To the editor:

It was with a great deal of interest that I read a recent article, "Senate lifts fetal tissue restrictions." The Senate approved a measure 87-10 that would life a ban on federal spending for research into transplanting organ tissues from aborted babies and whole organs of brain-damaged newborns into the victims of Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, spinal-cord injuries and diabetes. This bill will be referred to committees in order to work out the differences before sending it on to the president.

The publishing of this article brings into sharp focus the real divisions between the pro-life and pro-abortion forces. We have moved a step closer to thinking the unthinkable: growing fetuses for spare parts. Doctors in fetal research are very enthusiastic about the possibilities of improving the quality of life by using these tissues. While searching for a cure to these debilitating diseases is commendable, on the other hand how can we as a caring, feeling nation tolerate such outrageous behavior? The following horrors lead us to what may someday be called the Great American Holocaust:

1. Keeping brain-dead babies on a respirator for the sole purpose of ensuring fresh organs for transplantation.

2. The very real possibility exists that body parts would be harvested from children who are not yet dead.

3. The delay of an abortion into later stages of pregnancy in order to produce the ideal stage of tissue or organ development.

4. Aborting near- to full-term perfectly healthy babies in order to guaranteed undamaged organs.

5. The consideration of becoming pregnant just to donate or sell babies to victims of Alzheimer's or Parkinson's.

6. Columnist Patrick Buchanan has observed, "The day of the abortionist-entrepreneur may be at hand. Yuppie doctors who not only get rich doing abortions, but do a lucrative side business taking orders for the organs of the unborn children they have destroyed."

7. The infamous Roe vs. Wade decision has opened up whole new scenarios of farming fetal body parts where the strong will prey on the weak and where the poor will sell their aborted children to the rich for purposes of transplants.

The battle is on for the soul of America. There can be no compromise, no middle ground. Take no prisoners must be the mindset. How can you compromise on such an important issue? Unless the tide is turned, a new question will sweep our nation: How can a moral wrong be a civil right?

GERALD W. BEAM

Dexter