Choice is not a luxury

Re “Trying to navigate abortion politics,” Aug. 18

No one should be surprised at pro-choice groups’ “placid” reaction to the Democratic Party platform’s support for alternatives to abortion. Although I’m sure right-wingers would like the public to believe otherwise, the pro-choice movement is just that, pro-choice. We are not about forcing anyone to have an abortion, and if a woman with an unwanted pregnancy chooses adoption instead, it’s fine with us, as long as it’s her free choice.

We also would like to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies. Unfortunately, that is unlikely to happen if the people who run this country oppose comprehensive sex education and contraception -- as the Bush administration has with its promotion of “abstinence-only” sex education and its desire to classify common birth control methods as abortifacients.

Trudy Ring

Burbank

The Times quotes Gary Jacobson, a political scientist at UC San Diego, as saying that people are not as concerned about abortion politics this year because we do not have “the luxury to be concerned about social issues” because of the war and the economy.

Millions of women do care about our personal right to control when and with whom we procreate. The fact is, we care a lot more about that than we care about winning this war.

All we are doing in Iraq is killing someone’s babies, grown or not. Get out, let them have their oil, come home and care for our babies by providing a future free of pollution and politics.

Don’t forget: A woman’s right to decide if, when and with whom to bear a child is not a “luxury.”

Lucy Garcia

Chatsworth