Catholic New York

February 1, 1993

Catholic New York
February 1, 1993

Life Saved

To the Editor:

I am a 27-year-old black woman who is a single mother, working fulltime and attending graduate school. Although I am not a Catholic, I am writing to you to express my complete agreement with Cardinal O'Connor's assessment that were Dr. Martin Luther King alive today he would be against legalized abortion.

Three years ago I became pregnant. In desperation, I decided to seek an abortion. Through God's infinite mercy and compassion, on the morning the abortion was to have been performed, I was prevented from entering the clinic because Operation Rescue participants had chained themselves to its doors.

The posters they displayed, though very graphic, did succeed in bringing me back to reality and in conveying the horrible mutilation and dismemberment inflicted on the unborn child in its mother's womb during an abortion. The Operation Rescue counselors, in their offers of help, were gentle, nonjudgmental and obviously sincere. I decided to have the baby. It was the best decision I ever will make.

The issue of abortion is not one of religious opinion but of biological fact.

As many of your readers may know--but as I assure you, most women seeking an abortion do not--the unborn baby, by the third week of life, has a heartbeat. By the eighth week it possesses brain function, all the external and internal organs of the adult and experiences sensitivity to pain. The pro- life churches have to communicate the message far more effectively than we have been doing, that it is biological science, not merely religious belief, which proves that it is a human baby that is destroyed during an abortion, not merely a mass of tissue,

Our nation was founded on the belief that a human being is created in the image and likeness of God; that therefore his or her right to life is inalienable, i.e., bestowed directly by God, and may not under any circumstances no matter how seemingly compelling the reason, be arbitrarily taken away by the state.

Operation Rescue participants are making great personal sacrifices in willingly accepting jail to fight unjust laws, just as Dr, King and his followers did in the'60s.

My son is alive today thanks to Operation Rescue. Thirty-five million unborn babies who were put to death through legalized abortion were not so fortunate.

Violet Sherringford Jersey City, N.J.