Abortion is a religious issue

I didn’t see where letters to the editor of the Detroit Free Press are online, so I don’t have a link. A few days ago the paper ran an editorial titled, “Abortion restrictions can still protect choice.” I haven’t read it. In a lengthy letter reader Dennis Green of Farmington Hills called that an oxymoron. Here’s more of what he wrote:

The arguments regarding Roe v. Wade and women’s reproductive rights all skip over the basic assumption on which Roe is based, that abortion is a religious issue that the First Amendment reserved for the individual, not the government, which is why it speaks of privacy.

I hadn’t known religion was the basis of this right to privacy.

Basing the life of the embryo at the start of a heartbeat is inconsistent with the legal definition of life. The heart is just another organ which can be used in a transplant after a person has died. By itself it doesn’t define life.

Green was raised in a religion that believes a soul (a theological concept) is received at first breath – at birth. Catholics are taught the soul is received at conception.

An honest reading of the First Amendment says the government cannot choose between these irreconcilable beliefs and reserves it to the individual. … It’s time to stop debating in euphemisms of reproductive rights or the circular reasoning of defending Roe with Roe, and confront the truth that the abortion debate is about the establishment of religion. … Republicans rail against Sharia Law, but as one who ascribes to neither, I find Vatican Law equally odious.