Babies' deaths in Utah renew abortion questions

The story of the woman in Utah accused of suffocating six of her babies immediately after birth is sending a shock wave of horror through the country. I agree that it is absolutely horrible, but I need help with some questions.

If this woman had gone to an abortion clinic just a few months earlier for each child, then a licensed doctor would have legally killed the babies before they were born as the woman's right to control her own body and reproduction. The only thing that makes this story one of murder is that this woman waited the few extra months for nature to push the babies out and then allegedly killed them herself rather than pay someone else to remove and kill them.

The babies were not mentally developed enough to know what was happening, so how is suffocation more inhumane that the methods doctors use in clinics? How is a baby fresh out of the womb significantly more of a life than it was only a few months prior? Can it not be argued that a person in this woman's situation would still be within the time frame for calling this control over her body and reproduction?

In any other form of killing, paying someone else to do the desired act does not free one at all from a charge of murder. Why should it in the case of abortion? How is what this woman allegedly did greatly different in principle that what thousands of other women do in this country every day? I hope that someone can write and give an intelligent answer to these questions. I look forward to reading the letters.

Rich Lorimer

Streamwood