I realize Catherine Conover’s column “Planned Parenthood arms with information” will get some very negative responses from pro-life advocates, especially with her last argument where she says that the life of the pregnant women is more important than a fetus which does not even have consciousness.

The idea that one life could be more important than another life may seem appalling. However, those of you who think that the fetus should be saved at any cost, consider the following argument I once had with a hard-core pro-life mother.

A mother of five once told me in front of her husband that she would give her life away rather than have an abortion if she ever had to make that choice.

Her loving husband was not thrilled by the idea of losing his wife. I was also wondering how you would explain to six-year-old Patrick that his mother gave her life to save the life of his little brother or sister.

What kind of a mother would leave six orphans behind to save a fetus?

What kind of a family life will the baby responsible for his mother’s death have?

As Catherine Conover says, we need to consider not only the life of the mother, but also the life of the unwanted child.

I once had to play the role of a pro-life advocate in a philosophy class in high school. I did a pretty good job because one of my classmates hated me from that time on.

The reason was that when asked by my opponents what would become of an unwanted child whose mother was not fit to take care of, I said that it could be given away for adoption in a good and loving family.

My classmate was an adopted child. She became angry and told me that I had no idea what it was to grow up and find out that your parents were not your real parents and your natural mother did not want to raise you.

She was right. I have no idea and neither do many of us. Some of you may be thinking that there is no problem if the adoptive parents are careful, but there is still a risk, and in the case of my classmate, it resulted in an “I wish I was never born” feeling.

And let us be realistic. In many cases, the baby stays an unwanted child with a poor single teenage mother who will never go to college. In extreme cases, it ends up in a closet or in a dumpster. So what is in the best interest of the mother and the child?

Agnes Bischoff

Senior

Physics