Phil, I appreciate your column because you obviously put a lot of thought into what you write, and your column gives much-needed balance to The Northern Star, which has a tendency to drift toward the far-left if not held in check by conservative columnists and students who write to the editor, reminding us that heterosexual or celibate white males also have rights, and ask only to be respected and treated with human dignity. Double standards don’t wash well with me either.

Your Feb. 4 column concerns me, however. If you agree with me that life begins at conception, and that “all (humanity is) created equal, and endowed by their divine creator with certain unalienable rights…life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” then why don’t you feel that our laws against contract murder should apply to cases where the victim is under nine months of age?

Please don’t let the femi-nazis’ rhetoric cause you to forget the humanity of the pre-born. I know you feel abortion is wrong, and you probably agree with me that abortion is murder. Either all murder should be legal, or all murder should be illegal. It is wrong to make a special exception for women who hire doctors to kill their pre-born children. Murder is murder, whether the victim has been born yet or not. Therefore, if murder should be illegal, so should abortion. Unfortunately, as Pennsylvania Gov. Robert P. Casey pointed out, liberal Democrats have forsaken their tradition of championing the defenseless and become extremely intolerant of the pre-born child. Thus, Operation Rescue activists like me have carried on that tradition, and most of us are conservative Republicans.

Phil, I appreciate your insightful commentary, and I understand your attempt to clear up the misunderstandings of those who stereotype us as intolerant. I hope, however, that you will understand and accept that the purpose of laws is to protect our rights, especially life and property, and to give recourse to victims of those who disrespect those rights. For example, what about the father who didn’t want the mother to kill their child? Shouldn’t he have legal recourse? It is not intolerance to believe abortion, as a form of murder, should be illegal. In fact, such a law would extend our tolerance to another 6.1 million people a year, for whom a civilized country and the hearts of its citizens should certainly have room.

In the meantime, I’m sure I will continue to enjoy your future attempts to “add meaning to what the liberals are telling us.”

MICHAEL MCVEY

DeKalb resident