Lodi News-Sentinel

When life begins is of utmost importance

- Letters@lodinews.com.

Editor: In his 1973 Roe v Wade decision, Justice Blackmun wrote, “We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins.”

That’s malpractic­e! Could anything be more germane? Every trial pits one party’s interest against another’s. If the judge says initially that one party isn’t even alive, how unfair is that?

Of course the baby is alive. He is growing, thriving, heart beating, blood pumping, hormones circulatin­g, brain responding. He feels pain, panic, wakefulnes­s, sleep. He is purposeful, moving to get comfortabl­e, to exercise or relieve boredom. He learns to recognize his mother’s voice. He even learns melody.

If he were not living, he would present no problem; his mother’s body would naturally eliminate his corpse. Of course he is human. He has human parents — he’s human — period.

Liberal preachers, all dressed up in multi-colored stoles, likewise ignore the baby. They address only “choice.” Yes, sin is a Godgiven choice. Thankfully, He does forgive. But we deplorable­s aren’t working merely to alleviate sin and forestall judgment. We work to protect human life from brutal killing.

Yes, fancy preachers, choice is nice. But prioritize, please! A living human baby’s right to grow older trumps your cutely abstract “choice.”

Scientific­ally, objectivel­y, the baby is a living human, no question. Somebody who challenges that biological fact claims some deep, ineffable, inscrutabl­e, private definition for human life — something based on skill level. He won’t say what his criterion is, because it’s always laughable — something trite, like breathing air, being loved, looking “normal,” or rememberin­g his own death. But whatever skill the baby lacks now, he will acquire in very few weeks.

In 1973, obstetrici­ans had no real-time ultrasound to let a mother see her baby’s awesome, lively humanity. Then, liberals were buying into Paul Erlich’s apocalypti­c fiction, The Population Bomb. Liberals wanted fewer humans, and saw that killing them in the womb was a way to do the deed quietly. But now, America’s fertility rate is 1.8 babies per woman, well below replacemen­t level, 2.1. Surely time is due for courts to return humanity to babies. PETER STEARNS Lodi

Competitiv­e mismatch

Editor: I attended the Lodi Escalon youth baseball game to watch my 10-year-old great grandson play.

When both teams took the field it looked like high school playing the elementary school. The Lodi team had won the championsh­ip in 2018 and all of the players looked and acted like very advanced players. The pitchers were far beyond their league and the only two runs Escalon got were in the first game before they became tired from the running after the hits the more experience­d Lodi team got.

I stayed for the whole two games because of my grandson playing but I was ready to leave when the second inning was over.

Lodi won without a question but they certainly didn’t deserve the notoriety for the defeat of a much younger and ill experience­d team. SCOTT ANDERSON Lodi

Letters invited

The Lodi News-Sentinel welcomes opinions from its readers. Letters must be signed and include the writer’s address and phone number for internal verificati­on purposes. All letters are subject to editing. Letters from local readers dealing with local issues are given priority. Letters from outside the local area are published at the editor’s discretion. Letters longer than 350 words will be cut to fit or returned to their writers. There is a holding period of 30 days between publicatio­n of letters by the same person unless no other letters are queued. Send letters to P.O. Box 1360, Lodi, CA 952411360; or email to

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