To the Journal editor:

(Recently) I read a letter to the editor in The Mining Journal that left my humanity shaken.

I won’t mention the author’s name because this is not about a single person. It is about the state of mind (or rather heart) of the pro-abortion movement.

The letter I am referring to was written by a “helping professional” who expressed concern over “the negative mental health consequences that occur to the parents and child when abortion is not safely and easily accessible.”

(The writer) went on to opine that, “Unwanted pregnancies don’t just affect the mother … Children who are born into these circumstances are more likely to experience cognitive, emotional, and social impairments”, and that “parents and children will suffer unnecessarily.”

Oh, the hubris of the liberal elites who deem any life that includes suffering to be an “unnecessary” life! Should any of us be putting ourselves in the God-like position of pronouncing such a child/person as being better off dead?

If that child, now grown, depressed and unsuccessful, came to a counselor saying, “I would have been better off not being born”, should the answer come back. “You’re right, I tried to tell them that.” Or should our response be, “The world would have missed you. You might’ve been unplanned, but you’re not an accident. There are millions of success stories about people overcoming their circumstances, and there’s no reason you can’t be one of them.”

Is life really so worthless for anyone not born with a silver spoon in their mouth? I know that I was unplanned and heard my father often regretting adding “one more” to our poor, alcoholic home. And yes, I struggled through violence and tragedies, even becoming alcoholic myself.

But I am alive and happy today: how dare anyone pronounce my life not worth living! Even through the worst of times there was love, joy, fun, happiness, hope, and value beyond the disadvantages that life presented.

As a BSW who has counseled many desperate alcoholics, I never entertained the thought “maybe you would have been better off aborted.” And I would advise anyone with that attitude (especially in the helping professions) to examine their hearts and rethink their world view.

To believe that the disadvantaged would be better off dead is the height of liberal-elite arrogance. On behalf of my silent fellow humans who have been spared the “trouble” of living their lives, how dare you?