(In response to the recent letter, “Abortion is a fancy way to say selfish”). I can see that young Meredith has done a good job of learning the abortion talking points undoubtedly presented to her at her church. The abortion debate has few in the middle, most have taken sides and hold firmly to their point of view.

I’m of the opinion that abortion should be safe, legal and rare. Very few people really like the idea of abortion, even those like me who support its legality.

But the only way to make abortion rare is for there to be as few unwanted pregnancies as possible. This is only common sense and this is where the churches fail on a monumental level. The proven best ways to avoid unwanted pregnancies are through sex education and the use of birth control, two things that the churches fight tooth and nail.

On the one hand, they say they abhor abortion but they’re equally opposed to supporting sex education out of fear that this will somehow give young people the idea that they are condoning pre-marital sex. News flash: young people have always indulged in pre-marital sex and they always will. It’s only human nature and you can’t fight raging hormones.

All of the well publicized abstinence-only education programs and chastity pledges have done nothing to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies. Studies show that those parts of the country that are the most churched, such as the south, have the highest rates of teen pregnancies.

If the churches really cared about abortion they would stop being such obstructionists when it comes to teaching sex education in schools and stop attacking organizations like Planned Parenthood. In fact, if they really cared, they would offer sex education classes at church and perhaps even be willing to provide condoms as well.

Just because you believe in reason and common sense doesn’t mean you have to give your kids the message that they should be sleeping around, you can still teach them your ethics.

When my kids became teenagers I, like many parents, worried that they might go to a party some time and have too much to drink. I always taught them to be responsible and avoid such indulgences but I also told them that if they ever got drunk at a party and were not capable of driving home safely to call me and I would come get them, no questions asked, no guilt and anytime of the day or night. Their safety was more important to me than whether they broke the rules and I didn’t want them to ever be hesitant to put their safety first, even if they’d made a bad decision. I never got one of those calls either, it was never necessary.

So I ask, to Meredith and all her religious brethren, what’s more important? Reducing abortion rates or the nonsensical ideology that so many denominations preach that actually increase the number of unwanted pregnancies? You can’t have both.
Larry Knapp, Kirkland