In response to Nancy O’Hagan’s letter (“Numbers show Mainers support abortion“) published Sept. 5, I would like to offer a thoughtful rebuttal. The problem with numbers these days is that they can only be trusted to defend a position if the source of the information also supports your position.

Statistics and numbers aside, I would like to address the real issue: abortion. It’s labeled a women’s health issue, but that’s deceptive since healthy women deliver children to term. That’s by design. It’s said it should be a woman’s right to determine what happens to her body, but again, there’s some deception again since abortion is mostly impacting the child’s body. It’s interesting that murder is defined as the intentional taking of another person’s life and yet, even though an abortion meets that definition, we steer away from calling it murder. Why? Is it about the age of the child? One week, one month, one year, 10 years, 50 years – does age matter? People are jailed who take another’s life if the body is discovered and there’s sufficient evidence, and the crime seems more heinous the younger the person.

Currently a woman must intend to end the human life growing inside her body and must do so before anyone sees the child and knows it to be human or else face the legal consequences for having taken a life. As a culture and a country we have allowed the deception of abortion to go on too long and it’s time that we name it for what it is. Does there need to be dialogue about circumstances when defending the mother from the child warrants the death of the child? Maybe, but shouldn’t the child be given a chance to be born and at least hire a lawyer?

Mike Nelson
Brunswick