Ryan ChartrandThank you, Mr. Wolf, for writing in response to my letter.
To begin with, I would like to say ugh to the 250-word limit. I then would like to clarify that my “idea” of sperm and egg-killing being manslaughter is completely incredulous. I don’t believe in that myself. I was merely bringing it up based on the fact that you can’t have conception without them; therefore killing them, prevents a life from occurring. Just about anything can be reasoned if it’s only a step further than what’s already accepted as the norm.
On to the next point: rape victims’ pregnancies. One in 100 may not seem statistically significant, but it still is actually a lot of people. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics Web site, one in every six women has been sexually assaulted, with approximately 650,000 women raped a year in the United States as of 2001. Fourty-four percent of those victims are under the age of 18. According to the University of Rochester’s Men Against Sexual Assault organization, this results in approximately 32,000 pregnancies a year (about 15,000 to victims under the age of 18).
I urge us all to consider that these are not just numbers, but real people who are suffering. Even if it’s not a large portion of the population percentage-wise, it’s still thousands of real people whose lives are devastated. Is it fair to prevent them from changing their futures to make abortion a little less convenient for others?