Woman Imprisoned Over Prenatal Care

“Pregnant Sect Member’s Case Is a Rights Quandary” (Sept. 9), about Rebecca Corneau of Massachusetts being confined until her baby is delivered, raises a number of interesting issues. According to the article, she was confined because she belongs to a religious group that does not believe in medicine but in prayer only. What if she had decided to have an abortion instead of carry her baby to term? No action would have been taken against her, because abortion is legal. But because she chose to have her baby instead of terminate it, she is confined because, following her religious beliefs, she did not choose to have prenatal care.

Your article did a good job in discussing the constitutional issues in her case but ignored the issue of abortion. I see a double standard here. A woman’s “right to choose” is treated as a protected constitutional right, and yet this woman is being persecuted because she has also exercised her right to choose to have her baby as her religious beliefs dictate but the state of Massachusetts seems unable to accept. Let’s be consistent.

DAN FRITSCHLE

Moreno Valley

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Can Juvenile Court Judge Kenneth Nasif also hear the thoughts of every living, thinking human whose ultimate reconciliation with eventually being dead is going to occur, whether he or she likes it or not? Death happens to all of us, dear judge, and so does life. It sounds to me as if he, and perhaps other men, might be somewhat threatened by the power over life and death that all women invariably wield when they choose to be pregnant.

When a woman has a life inside, regardless of what it will be should it live beyond birth, she is in control of two lives; she alone has the power to choose life or death for either person. It is not society’s responsibility to make sure that every life conceived lives. Let this woman make her own choices regarding her baby; she alone will have to live (and die) with the consequences.

THERESE TREBAOL

Manhattan Beach