Existing human versus potential

In her Jan. 23 letter, Mary Ann Cronauer, commenting on the 36th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, says that the U.S. Supreme Court "gave women the right to legally kill their offspring." Perhaps that is not the proper characterization of abortion. The right to have an abortion involves balancing the interests of a living, pregnant woman against the "rights" of a fetus inside that woman's womb and not yet born. The pregnant woman is an existing, independent human person who makes her way in this world every day on her own, while the fetus has not yet come into this world and has only the potential of being born and at that time becoming an independent human being. The right to an abortion involves balancing the actuality of an existing being versus the potential of a fetus not yet born - actuality versus potential. I myself favor the rights of an actual existing person over the so-called "rights" of a potential being still in the womb, and, accordingly, I support a woman's right to have an abortion if she so chooses. That right will continue now that our president, who will appoint future supreme court justices, is Barack Obama.

Theodore M. Utchen

Wheaton