Editor, The Beacon:

Next year, we celebrate 160 years since slavery was abolished. Even the thought of one person owning another is reprehensible. It is hard to believe that there was a time when anyone could or would support such a practice. Or turn a blind eye to it.

Yet today one person can still own another person. The baby in the womb is owned totally by the mother. For nine months, sometimes longer, she has control over the life or death of her unborn baby. She owns that baby, and she can do whatever she wants to do with it.

We hear the words “pro choice,” but only the mother has choice. The father has no input. Even if the man and woman are married, and the father of the unborn baby wants the baby, the mother can get an abortion.

The mother has to deal with a pregnancy for nine months. But even if the father of the baby is ready to take on responsibility for at least 18 years, he is denied that choice.

There may be many men who sadly are glad to see the baby aborted. But men who want the baby will face a lifetime of heartbreak because their baby was aborted.

We look back 160 years on the horror of slavery. One hundred sixty years from now, will people look back with horror on the fact that society condoned, or turned a blind eye, to the killing of our unborn? How will history judge us?

Patricia A. James
Pierson