TO THE EDITOR:
It appears that recently the focus of the "Right to Life" as presented in "The Rhode Island Catholic" zeroes in primarily on "The Abortion Issue."
This seems quite evident by your constant theme, that abortion takes the lives of the most helpless and defenseless in our society. I am sure that some of your readers, who have read this second sentence, have already made the false judgment that I am pro abortion.
"That is not the truth," to quote Thomas Moore at his scornful and derisive trial. I prefer to embrace the "Multi-colored seamless garment" idea of the late Cardinal Bernadin. He preferred not to marginalize some aspects of "Right to Life" in favor of others but stated clearly that the cause would be better served in not using a rating scale of 1 to 10 in assigning who is most helpless and who is most defenseless. Simply ask your readers to avoid that dangerous mentality of placing more importance on any one aspect of life over another.
We, who are old enough to remember the atrocities of World War II, know the dangers of doing this. Really, in actual fact, do your readers believe that the instantaneous death of a fetus (life in the womb of its mother) is more defenseless or more helpless than the agonizing, painful and long crushing death of hundreds of thousands of babies and young ones, who are physically present in the world but cannot act for themselves due to starvation and thirst, not only in Somalia but worldwide? I do not believe so!
I believe that we have failed desperately in our personal, governmental and religious obligations to make Matthew's Gospel, Chapter 25 Vs. 34-46, a reality!
John P. Lynch
North Smithfield
