Dear Editor: America was founded with the protection of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. These rights protected by our Constitution have been called inalienable, i.e. they cannot be taken away. In my service in the Catholic Church, I hear “For the right to life from conception to natural death, we pray to the Lord.”

Along with the protection in our Constitution, we have the Commandments of God given to Moses on Mt. Sinai, “Thou shalt not kill” (Fifth Commandment).

We have recognized that our protection of life allows self-defense in our life and in our country. It is clear that I can write this letter because my parents did not practice abortion. They also did not believe in abortion as a right for anyone. This allowed me to be born. You the reader would also not be here if your parents practiced abortion.

In our country, there is great division over thought and practice in relation to abortion. In the recent marches of women in Washington, there was the pro-choice group yelling and screaming about women’s control of their body. They did not respect the right-to-life women who had a separate march to Washington.

The choice to kill the baby in the womb is a crime. Abortion violates the Constitution of the United States, the Fifth Commandment, the beauty of pregnancy, and the birth of a human life.

We condemn terrorism as in 9-11 and ISIS but we live our own form of terrorism against life in the womb. The real choice we have is to protect life from conception to natural death. The right to choose this is beautiful. This reminds us that freedom is the right to choose good. We see the possibility in America that we might revisit the Roe vs. Wade ruling and we see the violence of the extreme.

I believe it is time for us to do what we can to end the crime of abortion.

DEACON ARTHUR GRIFFIN

MASPETH