LETTERS: RIGHTS ON ABORTION

To the editor:

Cal Thomas, in his July 25 column, has raised the bar on the protection of human life another notch by complaining about the impending use in the United States of the so-called abortion pill, or RU486. These medications cause a woman's body to refuse to allow the retention of a newly formed zygote in her uterus. This is not, strictly speaking, a contraceptive. The zygote, a two-celled organism formed from the combination of a sperm and an egg, will, if allowed to, develop into a child. It is this technical consideration which causes the very zealous Thomas to equate the use of RU486 with the killing of an already born child.

Thomas also brings up the question of harmful side effects associated with the use of RU486. Without having seen a statistical breakdown of these, I would nevertheless venture to assume that France, which is no slouch in medical research, would not have licensed RU486 in the face of significant contraindications. I believe that this is a straw man set up by fetus fetishists to discredit RU486, just as the safety of legal surgical abortions was similarly called into question by them. When it was shown that childbirth was less safe for the mother than abortion, the public justifiably disregarded that disingenuous distraction.

Thomas is simply going to have to get used to the fact that sex, in addition to its procreational purpose, also has a recreational purpose. Everybody who partakes in sex does so for one or both of those purposes. Thomas seems to feel that it is God's will that every act of sex with a woman of child-bearing age must result in a child. Well, goody for him. As an atheist, however, I do not accept the protocols of his religion, and I fully support the right of every woman to choose whether or not to carry a pregnancy to term. Down with bigotry, and down with zygote-ry.

DONN S. MILLER

Tamms, Ill.