‘Meaning of Roe vs. Wade’

By now we’re all familiar with the arguments, pro and con, concerning abortion. But I think it behooves us to keep the debate within the realm of civility and truth.

(Operation Rescue organizer) Joseph Foreman, whose comments were quoted in “Anti-Abortionists Get Setback” (Metro, March 3), exceeds the bounds of legitimate public debate when he says Judge Terry Hatter’s order says “ . . . It’s right to protect baby killers.” That is arrant, hysterical nonsense.

And when Foreman cites Susan B. Anthony as a model for his protest movement, that’s downright chutzpah. If there was one thing that appalled Anthony it was the plight of women burdened with too many children, living in poverty, and doomed to an early, worn-out death.

She was even irked by the fact that her closest friend and ally, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, had so many children. She felt that Stanton’s time and energies were depleted by the necessity of caring for them when she could have been working for women’s rights. (Stanton, by the way, managed quite nicely--but then, she could afford her progeny.) If Anthony were alive today, I’m sure she would be an ardent supporter of Planned Parenthood and militantly pro-choice.

By the way, has anyone else besides me noticed that the majority of Operation Rescue’s demonstrators are men? Is it the “barefoot and pregnant” philosophy reasserting itself, or just the prehistoric male desire to perpetuate his genes, run amok?

RUTH LANSFORD

Playa del Rey