In "Focus" for April_-I9, Dr. Roger Johnson attacks a three year-old statement of Cardinal Coke on abortion and raises several peripheral issues. He barely adverts to the central issue saving: "No one can know for sure when a person becomes a human being.' In other words, when in doubt, abort.

Actually there is abundant scientific evidence that human life begins at least at implantation if not earlier, The First International Conference on Abortion, held in Washington, D.C., in October 1969, concluded: "The changes occurring between implantation, a six weeks embryo, a six month fetus, a one-week old child, or a mature adult are merely stages of maturation and development." Only 20 percent of these biochemists, professors of obstetrics and gynecology and geneticists, who are more certain than Dr. Johnson about the origin of human life, were Catholic.

Dr. Johnson deplores pro-life stereotypes. Pro choice advocates have their own stereotypes, Thus these who oppose abortion on demand are caricatured as callous and insensitive to women who suffer unwanted pregnancies. Accually this caricature ignores the great psychological, emotional and physical damage In these women that frequently results from the violent procedures of abortion. The damage has been studied and documented not only In societies somewhat influenced by religious beliefs but also in pagan societies.

Why don't those who doubt the presence of human life within the mother resolve their doubts In favor of life? Civilized societies habitually grant human life that benefit

(Msgr.) Edward M.  CONNORS  Ph.D

 

Catholic Vicar of Central Westchester

Archdiocese of New York

Scarsdale