LETTERS: NEED TO FACE UP TO THE REALITY OF ABORTION

To the editor:

It has been said by those in favor of legal abortion, and recently by some candidates for the presidency, that stopping legal abortion will not happen through changing laws. Rather, it will come from changing hearts.

We don't need to change hearts. People already know abortion is unjustifiable killing. For evidence, I offer a look back to 1989 when for two weeks Rush Limbaugh did "caller abortions." If he got a call he didn't like on his radio show, he would push a button, get a sound effect of a vacuum cleaner and a scream, and disconnect the call. People got so upset that one radio station pulled the show entirely. Limbaugh was denounced as cruel and heartless.

He challenged his listeners: "None of what I did was real. Yet in this country abortion happens 4,000 times a day -- for real. There is real emotional distress. There is physical harm, and there is death. Where is the outrage against those who do it for real just down the street from where they live? If you didn't know in your heart of hearts that abortion was a savage, violent act, what I did wouldn't have bugged you so much. I took you inside an abortion mill, and some of you couldn't take it."Limbaugh was right. People don't need a change of heart. They need to step inside the abortion mill and face up to reality. The problem isn't hearts of stone. It's feet of clay.

CHRISTINE E. STEPHENS

Cape Girardeau