LETTERS: RAPPED IN SEMANTICS

To the editor:

Is there any real sanity in the abortion debate? We are trapped in our own semantics. We are all so insulated from any kind of killing that the word has become almost synonymous with abortion.

I wonder how many chickens we would eat if all we could buy at the market were live chickens. How many people would eat pork or beef if they had to kill their own animals?

These words are so loaded with emotion that no rational discussion is possible any more. The extremists, who earnestly believe that they are absolutely right, do a disservice by using rhetoric that engenders guilt and abhorrence in us. Would it make us feel better if we simply said, "We pulled the plug?"

I cannot believe that every fertilized human egg should legally be mandated to come to term regardless of how it happened, how poor the prospects for it are or how genetically defective it may be.

The television series, "The Ascent of Man," was on the mark when it said in essence that our problems are not due to science and scientists. Tragedies occur when people, believing that they are divinely, absolutely right, justify any action or crime that they commit. That is true for both sides.

H.E. FIEHLER

Cape Girardeau