To the editor:

I am in opposition to your recent article, “Abortion obsession wasting tax dollars,” which is a reprint from The (Fort Wayne) Journal Gazette.

The article promotes the continuing practice of killing unborn babies and portrayed Planned Parenthood as the sensible voice for Indiana citizens.

The article suggests that any legislation passed by our elected legislators that continues the fight against the killing of the unborn in Indiana is a waste of tax payers’ money.

They accused the Indiana General Assembly of being obsessed with abortion restrictions that have cost taxpayers $3 million in legal defense since 2011. To set the record straight, if their figure is correct, this equates to about 60 cents per aborted child in Indiana over the last seven years. What a small value the article places upon the unborn. And, evidently, the small amount of money spent is somewhat working, for the abortion rate continues to decline in Indiana.

The article argues a previous anti-abortion bill passed by legislators was found to be unconstitutional, so any future law against abortion will be found “unconstitutional” and therefore a waste of money.

They defend this assumption by quoting the Indiana/Kentucky Planned Parenthood’s president Christie Gillespie’s assertion that abortion laws were set in stone over 40 years ago and can never be rescinded.

That assertion is farfetched in that the same constitution she speaks of actually protected the unborn for almost 200 years prior to the Roe v. Wade decision. She cites that the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision has made it clear that legislation passed against abortion is against the law, therefore, anti-abortion proponents need to move on to more meaningful issues. In a democratic society, our legislators’ mouths regarding abortion should not be bridled by Planned Parenthood and the ACLU.

The current legislation in contention is designed to require “physicians who treat women for a physical or psychological condition connected in any way to a past abortion to report detailed patient information to the state.”

The argument against such reporting insists this is a cumbersome task to place upon physicians, but it may reveal a sad story of emotional and physical trauma that is a direct result of the abortion experience. Such information needs to be shared.

The article accuses the legislators of attempting to “shame and stigmatize pregnant Hoosiers.”

It hints that I, as a taxpayer, want the legislators to ignore the 7,277 abortions that took place in Indiana in 2016. Contrariwise, I want the legislators to know this article does not reflect my sentiments one iota. Conversely, I applaud the legislators who continue to push for means to get society to think sensibly and morally regarding the unborn.

Sensibly: The unborn is a human being. Ask any woman who has ever given life to a child: who has felt the heartbeat of a child in their womb or the kick of its heel against their rib cage. Ask any woman who has lost an unborn and who has grieved over such because it was more than a mass of cells and tissue: It was a child to whom they gave life and for some time shared that life. Whether the loss is at 12 weeks or full term, the mother grieves?

Morally: Legislators have a moral obligation to the unborn, for they are human beings. The argument that viability (the capability of the unborn to live outside the mother’s womb) is the determining factor in one’s decision to kill the unborn is vague at best and terribly depraved at its core, for the unborn is a human being at any stage of prenatal development. That unborn child is a miniature person: A future artist, teacher, business owner, nurse, statesman, inventor, scientist, and more. These children need a chance live, to see the colors of the rainbow, to witness the warmth of the sunshine, to feel the cool of a fallen snowflake on the tip of their noses, to hear the sounds of a symphony and the chirping of a newborn bird. Even a year-old child cannot live on its own without assistance by the caregiver. That is why government is obligated to protect children. I believe this obligation of protection extends to the unborn.

Contrary to what Planned Parenthood envisions, the war against the killing of the unborn is far from over. The Roe v. Wade decision in 1973 was a major victory for them. Interestingly, that decision was made five years after Stanford biologist, Paul Ehrlich, published a book entitled “The Population Bomb.”

In this book he argued that unless the world stopped producing so many people, hundreds of millions would die from starvation in the 1970s. And so, the subtle message caught on: Don’t have babies.

Worse still, there’s a simple solution to unwanted babies: Abortion.

Mr. Ehrlich’s book sold three million copies, and I believe it had a profound impact upon the manner in which multiple decisions have been made regarding life in the womb. And though his predictions never came to pass, they justified the killing of 45,000,000 unborn babies in the U.S. since the writing of the book: That equates to 3,000 babies killed in the U.S. each day.

Killing the unborn may seem the easiest thing to do for various reasons, but the easiest route is not necessarily the right route.

With the direction the article suggests, which is to not waste taxpayer money on fetuses of perceived less than human worth, we are on a slippery slope toward the termination of anyone who cannot live apart from some form of life-support.

Any society that operates apart from moral obligations to the unprotected is headed for insolvency. So, as the article suggests, I will weigh campaign pledges, but what I am hoping to hear are promises by legislators to continue the battle for life in the womb.

Larry Arrowood is pastor at The Tabernacle in Seymour.