Editor:

I’m writing in response to Lance Bradshaw’s letter to the editor, (“Laws should be concerned with morality,” Nov. 11). The whole reason abortion is up for debate is that it is not clear to everyone whether an unborn fetus is technically alive, and therefore whether its “life” can be taken. There are entire philosophy courses available to discuss this sort of problem.

What defines a moral or an immoral action?

Laws in the United States of America are written in protection of three things: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Men and women are free so long as they don’t infringe upon these rights of their fellow Americans. In a free democracy, laws should not govern morality because morality is relative. Philosophers have been debating morality for millennia.

What’s disgusting to me-Iraq war? Gay bashing?-may be justified to you. It doesn’t mean I go around whining that there should be laws written against gay bashers.

As far as Bradshaw’s sarcastic translation of the phrase “pro-choice,” I couldn’t imagine a more ignorant statement. He said, “People who say they are ‘pro-choice’ are simply saying, ‘I don’t know what I want, but I want to choose. Even if it’s the wrong choice, at least I got to choose.'”

Isn’t the whole point behind freedom that we have the right to choose? Or is Bradshaw the person I should go to before making a decision to find out whether it would be “wrong?”

You are not the God of right and wrong, even if you have religion as your wingman. Murdering an innocent child is universally accepted as horrible, yet some people still do it. Governments do it. Ours does it. But killing something that nobody’s sure is even alive? Gasp!

This whole topic reminds me of a cartoon I saw in which the son had gotten a girl pregnant, and the father wanted the baby aborted.

The wife said, “What?! An abortion? We’re Republicans, that’s the one sort of killing we don’t like!”

Bradshaw, I’m sure you sing national anthems to yourself, and I’m sure it helps you sleep at night. But please, don’t misinterpret the lyrics of a classic. “America the Beautiful” has absolutely nothing to do with abortion.

Jake Van Alstyne

Sophomore, Chemical Engineering