Womb, woman, and child

SINCE THE US Supreme Court has ruled to uphold a ban on what some call "partial-birth abortions," I would like to offer up my own legislation: The Unintentional Pregnancy Prevention Act, in which all males 18 years of age and older must undergo a mandatory vasectomy. The rule would be reversible only by an order of "Intention to Procreate" signed by the woman to become impregnated.

Obviously, my law violates every civil right in our Constitution, but isn't that the point? My law exclusively targets men. All anti-abortion laws exclusively target women. My law would force men to undergo a medical procedure against their will. Women denied access to abortion could be forced to undergo the medical procedure of childbirth against their will, regardless of any risk to their own lives.

No law will ever end abortion. Making abortion illegal only violates a woman's right to control her body. If the government has the power to determine who must maintain a pregnancy, then what prevents it from determining who must not become pregnant at all? What about single women, welfare recipients, drug addicts, or women who smoke cigarettes? Only the woman should decide.

KATEY PLUCINSKI
Hudson

FOR THOSE of us who think that abortion is the taking of a life, claims by progressives that they want abortion to be "safe, legal, and rare" sound a lot like the Bush administration claiming it wants to invade Iraq with minimal casualties. Intentions are great, but it's entirely possible that abortion cannot be all three of those things in a free society.

Even with a noticeable drop in the abortion rate in recent years, there are still well over 1 million abortions performed annually in the United States . Intentions and rhetoric ring hollow in the face of such numbers.

SCOTT HAILE
Newtonville

I WAS disappointed in the April 19 front-page article about the Supreme Court decision to limit women's medical abortion options. It wasn't fair not to mention the reasons why some women and their doctors choose the intact dilation and extraction procedure, while you quote Justice Kennedy saying that it is "never medically necessary." It's also unfair to pro-choice women to use only the political term "partial-birth abortion" and not the medical term .

This technique is one that is used for removal of fetuses who are extremely deformed and unlikely to survive, such as fetuses with hydroencephaly . In some cases it is the preferred technique, as it is safer for the mother and her uterus.

I know a woman who had to have this procedure done. She had a fetus with no brain. It was going to be born dead. She had already had two miscarriages , and she was very sad. Shouldn't she and her doctor have determined the best way to end this pregnancy, with the least trauma to her body, with the best hope for a future child?

PATRICIA RACKOWSKI
Dorchester

ELLEN GOODMAN ("Trumping women's rights," Op-ed, April 20) accuses politicians (mostly male) of playing God. May I remind her that it was the first woman playing God in a garden and deciding for herself what was good and what was evil that got us into the moral mess that we find ourselves in today. While her man stood mutely by, Eve blithely destroyed the lives of her future children. Perhaps the politicians are just now trying to right that wrong.

As Rabbi Abraham Heschel, himself a descendant of Eve, said long ago, "Just to live is holy, just to be is a blessing." We'll be a long way down the road to ensuring everyone's rights when we begin defending the weakest and most vulnerable among us.

The Rev. GEORGE SZAL
Revere
The writer is a pastor at the Immaculate Conception Parish.