Vail Daily Letter: "Yes" on Amendment 62

I would like to urge people to vote “yes” on Amendment 62, which would outlaw abortion in the state of Colorado. People must look beyond the “rights” of women and consider the rights of all human beings. Many people argue that this will take away a woman’s right to have an abortion in the cases of rape or incest. Yet studies show that fewer than 1 percent of abortions are a result of rape or incest. However, even in the case of rape and incest, a woman cannot consider the unborn baby to be the attacker. The unborn baby is just as much of a victim as the woman who was attacked. The baby did not choose to be born. There are many support and counseling centers for women who have been raped, and many women learn to love the innocent baby that is growing inside of them. If the woman decides that she does not want to keep the baby, there are hundreds of couples, my husband and myself included, who would love to adopt a child.

People may argue that an unborn baby is not a human being because it is dependent on the mother in order to live. However, there are many people who would not be alive if they could not depend on some form of life support. There are people on kidney dialysis who would die if they did not receive their treatments. People suffering from heart problems would die without a pacemaker. There are even some who could not live if they were not on oxygen. Yet this does not give them less of a right to life! Everyone has a right to life, even unborn babies.

I would ask moms and dads to think of your children. You might have a boy or a girl or several children. Think about when you found out you were pregnant, maybe a month or so after the baby had been conceived. Then consider one of the methods of abortion being performed on your unborn baby. Before anyone votes “no” on Amendment 62, I challenge them to Google common methods of abortion and see how the procedures are performed. One cannot argue that the baby does not feel anything at this stage of development. By the ninth week of development, the baby can already turn somersaults, frown, swallow and react to light.

I urge anyone who may be the victim of an unwanted pregnancy to seek counseling and look into the option of adoption instead of abortion. Please vote “yes” to Amendment 62 and extend basic human rights to all people, even unborn babies.