Letter: The rational path to compromise

A country with over 330 million people of diverse backgrounds is bound to hold a galaxy of religious beliefs. Any favoring of one particular religious belief over another in public policy should be assiduously avoided, which our founding fathers clearly understood in separating church and state. Reasonable Americans today should be no more agreeable to criminalizing the termination of unintended pregnancies for religious reasons than we would be to requiring all American women to wear burkas in public.

The ideal public policy offers options that make compromise possible. Americans recognize and take for granted the value of personal choice in health care, public versus private education, sexual orientation, marriage partners, religious affiliation, political party and purchase of virtually any product or service. Personal family planning options should be just as subject to personal choice. Roe v. Wade was a long- and hard-fought compromise guaranteeing every woman’s right to choose in keeping with her personal beliefs. It should have been codified into law 50 years ago.

There is growing urgency for that codification. The world can no longer afford 8 to 10 billion people at current levels of consumption as peak oil makes energy progressively unaffordable. Average family size must decrease. Safe, legal termination of unintended pregnancies must join contraception and investment in women’s education as eminently reasonable family planning options to reduce average family size in the post-petroleum era expected in the next 30 years. Only a progressive Congress will make that happen. Vote Democratic.

Donovan C. Wilkin

Huntley