In Charlie Mitchell’s Oct. 16 column criticizing Mississippi’s Initiative 26, pro-abortion advocates are described as the “group that prefers to let others make their own reproductive decisions.”

I am pro-life. I do prefer to let others make their own reproductive decisions. There is nothing reproductive about abortion. Pro-lifers are depicted as the “group that can’t abide the thought of anyone choosing to end a life in the making.” When does that life in the making become simply, a life? It already is.

Science is clear: from the moment of conception, a unique life comes into existence possessing DNA from both parents, which combine to determine all of one’s physical characteristics. Abortion advocates may argue that new life is not yet a “person” until some threshold is crossed such as viability, capacity to feel pain or even birth. But this argument is not based on science but instead on ideology, philosophy, or belief.

Honest abortion supporters concede the biological fact that abortion ends the life of an individual human being, but argue that it is a permissible killing. As chilling as that is — yes, this clearly is a human baby resting in his mother’s womb; let’s kill him anyway — I respect the intellectual honesty.

The article goes on to claim that Initiative 26 will work directly against those who sincerely want babies by prohibiting in vitro fertilization. This is false. It will not ban IVF, although it does ban the destruction of unused embryos.

Other opponents of the amendment go further, alleging it will outlaw contraceptives and will even, if you can believe it, criminalize miscarriage and life-saving measures for women suffering tubal pregnancies. These too are false. For more information, visit yeson26.net.

Dawn Farthing

Vicksburg