Letters to the Editor
Abortion Cartoon Irresponsible
I was saddened to see The Tech’s regrettable decision to run a political cartoon (April 24, 2007) about the Supreme Court’s recent 5-4 ruling to uphold a ban on intact dilation and extraction (often termed “partial birth abortion”). The cartoon in question depicted the Supreme Court in the form of a coat-hanger, implying that women’s rights and freedoms are harmed by the court’s decision.
It is unthinkable that anyone could coherently defend the barbaric practice of intact dilation and extraction. How can anyone believe that it is not permissible to kill a child entirely outside the woman’s body while maintaining that it is permissible to kill a child whose head partially remains within the woman’s body? How can that three-inch difference of location change the legality and permissibility of the act? Is there any medically and ethically meaningful way to distinguish partial birth abortion from infanticide? The pro-choice position on this issue is grossly inconsistent, and political appeals to images of coat-hangers merely distract from the central issue of the child’s rights.