In a Nov. 10 letter titled “Bush’s victory still a mystery,” Mark Shottle reprimands Republicans for inconsistent moral views. Though I don’t consider myself a Republican necessarily, I side with them on a few issues and feel that I can clear up some of Mr. Shottle’s confusion.

Mr. Shottle shames Republicans for opposing abortion but at the same time supporting “killing many of our young soldiers fighting a war that was started by us.” First, to respond to the war side of his argument: If age is an issue, he should be more upset about abortion. Also, the “he started it” argument should have been left on the playground.

More importantly, however, Mr. Shottle has lumped two different kinds of death together that should never be: those of a voluntarily death in support of a cause one believes is a just one and an involuntary death that one has no control over.

Mr. Shottle stated that he doesn’t “understand how you can vote against killing something that cannot live without a host.” Mr. Shottle has just equated a human fetus with a virus. But listen, why do we want to kill viruses? Viruses are typically harmful to the body.

But everyone knows that a human fetus is very rarely harmful to its mother; if anything, it is typically beneficial because the mother’s immune system is boosted during pregnancy to protect the developing fetus.

I would add that Mr. Shottle would have to agree that during the earliest stages of his own development, he was something that could have been intentionally destroyed without any moral infraction, and I’m sure he wouldn’t want to do that.

So I hope this letter has cleared up the confusion about these two kinds of death and shown that dying willingly for a cause one believes to be a just one and dying involuntarily and without defense are two things that cannot be lumped into a single category.

Tyler Strodtman

Sophomore

Psychology