Powerful cartoon

In response to the backlash caused by the Feb. 1 editorial cartoon, depicting a very pregnant woman being asked if she has yet to make a “decision” to carry her child: Although the cartoon could be interpreted as insensitive, may I suggest that its power was in its insensitivity?

Our country has created so many problems for itself, the most recent coming out in the Jan. 22 New York passage of the Reproductive Health Act and subsequent comments by Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam describing infanticide. The resulting effect was the focus on lateterm abortion: the abortion of a baby in the second or third trimester.

Yes, this is horrifying. Abortion advocates tell us that abortions after 21 weeks only comprise 1.4 percent of all abortions — really low, right? Not quite. In numbers, we are talking about 15,000 babies extinguished after viability. And the startling fact is that most of these abortions are not done because of fetal anomalies or the health of the mother. But even if a woman is faced with a physical health issue, in modern medicine, every effort is made to save both the mom and the baby.

There was a time when a woman in her second or third trimester would not have thought twice about carrying her child to term. Now that we have decided that only women have “rights” and that our preborn children have no rights whatsoever, the slope becomes more slippery in making life and death decisions. Decisions that, in truth, are not ours to make. The purpose of the cartoon was to make us think. Thanks to the cartoonist. KATHY RAIMONDI

Castle Shannon