Editor:

I must first express contempt for the dismissal of gay rights in a recent letter and relief that the author was not a member of my alma mater (“Professor’s words lack thought, analysis,” Jan. 21). This, however, is not the reason for my letter.

In recent abortion polemics, there has been no conversation about the right of a fetus to live inside of a woman who does not want it there.

In James Ianelli’s invocations of classical liberalism (“‘Right to choose’ argument uses faulty logic,” Dec. 3), he does not consider that under the state’s law a woman is the owner of her body and that others have access to it only by permission (sex is not permission to occupy for nine months). This is why Scott Peterson should be charged for killing a fetus, but a woman who has an abortion is not charged with a crime. It is up to her who will live in her womb, and she has the right to reject someone from her body, even if that person will certainly die.

The abortion debate is not hinged upon when life begins, but on the rights of a pregnant woman.

While Christian faith rejects such an action and believes that the perfect God is the owner of our bodies, we must defend corporeal sovereignty against the imperfect state. It is through this logic that voluntary Christian faith has any real life-saving potential.

The same liberal legal logic that punishes rape as a crime against the victim’s individual bodily integrity should also prohibit forced carriage of babies and allow a woman to reject a fetus – living or not – from her womb. While such action is barbaric and heartless, I would appeal to reason rather than state violence in order to stop it. A legal ban on abortion is tantamount to enslavement through the womb, and a law that would force women to carry unwanted babies in their bodies is a violation of human rights.

Ianelli’s dismissal of a woman’s claim to self ownership on the basis of her ability to share her body is a dangerous precedent for the dismissal of other claims to individual rights and does nothing to encourage the voluntary submission to Christ that we the faithful seek to share.

Ellennita Muetze Hellmer

A’04