I do not like alcohol. When I think of all the pain and suffering alcohol causes from family stress to death on the highways. In a perfect world, I would ban all alcohol. But this is not a perfect world, and we know prohibition didn’t work.

So it is with abortion. I wish all unplanned babies could be born, but this is not a perfect world and by banning abortion we would only have back-alley, unsafe procedures. A kindly doctor recently confided to close friends that before abortion became legal, there was an epidemic of young women who died of “burst appendix.” Rather than embarrass an already grieving family, he wrote on the death certificate “burst appendix” instead of “botched abortion.”

As Christians we need to teach the value of life so that hopefully more and more of these unplanned babies will be brought to full term and live.

However, it is not enough to just want these babies to be born. We need to be concerned that they have a quality life once born. That programs such as food stamps, early childhood education and especially a health insurance system that takes care of all children be in place.

The odds are that a healthy child will grow to be a productive and responsible adult. Health insurance for all is an investment not only in the children we want to be born but also in the future of our nation.

Eloise Adams

Albert Lea