I’m sick and tired of the anti-abortion minority co-opting the phrase “pro-life” like it puts them on some sort of exalted moral pedestal. If they were truly advocates for all these lives they claim they are saving, why aren’t they every bit as committed to:

· Universal health care, especially for pre-natal mothers? (Or at least expanding Medicaid for poor mothers and children?)

· Universal pre-K to help children get the right start on their schooling?

· Expanding budgets for schools, student lunches and teacher’s salaries to help those children get a decent education?

· Establishing universal day care so parents can work to support their families instead of having to stay out of the workplace because they can’t afford child care?

· Backing a decent living minimum wage so the parents of these children can support them at a level above the barest of essentials?

· Helping build up family lives instead of condemning these unplanned children and their families to a life of poverty and need?

· Taking real action on gun control to erase the terrible fact that guns have now surpassed car wrecks as the #1 killer of children and adolescents?

The “pro-life” hypocrisy goes on and on and on. A true and honest “pro-life” stance would be cradle to the grave – way, way beyond leaving it at forcing pregnancies on women.

Richard Tyler, Hillsboro