Patriarchal stance

I'm commenting on Ann Rodgers' June 26 article about Wanda Franz, president of the National Right to Life Committee ("Retired Educator Has Spent 20 Years Battling Abortion," June 26). The National Right to Life Committee is a conservative organization founded in the early 1970s by a group of extremist Catholic bishops in response to growing public support for women's reproductive freedom. Its members are predominantly from male-dominated conservative Catholic and Protestant denominations. Its main purpose is to recriminalize medically safe abortion.

I found much of what Ms. Franz had to say deeply disturbing and hypocritical -- especially coming from a psychology professor and a woman.

It's unconscionable for anyone to compare the Holocaust with women's reproductive freedom! Women and doctors who respect women's moral authority aren't Nazis. Women's lives, circumstances and conscience actually matter.

The 1973 Supreme Court decision that legalized medically safe abortion was a milestone for women's equality. I remember the days of the Underground Railroad for women. Just as some folks today deny the Holocaust ever happened, NRLC too denies the tragic plight of women before Roe v. Wade.

The so-called "partial birth abortion" ban was a political scam used to sensationalize a rare alternative medical procedure used to protect the health and life of the mother. This ban will never save one fetus!

I believe abortion is a moral option between a woman and her faith or conscience. From experience I know women don't take their decisions lightly. Wanda Franz will continue to defend the patriarchy and its oppression of women because she doesn't know any better. To do otherwise would require her to examine her own "inner patriarch."

SUE AMOS
Morgantown, W.Va.

The writer is a member of the National Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice.