Nick Schmitz, Minot

Regarding Kayla Schmidt, she is simply wrong in describing herself in her June 23 letter as a “pre-me – a collection of cells.” A human person is formed at the moment of conception. Abortion kills this living person. This is a scientific fact that is not disputed, and even former president of Planned Parenthood, Faye Wattleton, recognized this, stating: “I think we have deluded ourselves into believing that people don’t know that abortion is killing. So any pretense that abortion is not killing is a signal of our ambivalence, a signal that we cannot say yes, it kills a fetus.” Abortion kills another human, which is why abortion is wrong.

Schmidt argues for control over her body, when what she really is arguing for is the ability to kill another person legally. If Schmidt and others who think like her truly had control over their bodies, then they would never get pregnant when they do not want to. But the fact of the matter is, these people fail to take control of their bodies and then want to be able to kill a baby that results as a consequence. I do not want lawmakers to tell Schmidt how to handle her body, but I do want the law to defend other innocent persons from being killed by others. Both men and women must be responsible for their actions. Everyone has control of creating life with their own bodies and should they create it, they must live with the responsibility it entails. Life is life and no matter the circumstances that it is conceived under, no matter the circumstances a person has to live in and grow up in, the life of every person should be defended.