*UPDATE: This is a full version of a letter to the editor that ran in the Nov.5, 2013 edition of the Collegian.*

Sean Kennedy claims that the “anti-abortion” position is “standard fundamental bigotry”.

Why?

Why is it bigotry to defend the lives, the rights, and the choices of the unwanted, the helpless, the inconvenient, and the undesirables? Why is it bigotry to oppose the extermination of innocents because they have a genetic disorder, the wrong sex, or a poor family? Why is it bigotry to intervene in the cycle of violence and prevent children from dying for the crimes of their fathers?

Why is it bigotry to do all this for individuals whom will never thank or repay you and whom, one day, may turn around and wrongly accuse you of bigotry because you get in the way?

People who oppose abortion believe that the most fundamental rights of the weak should not be trampled to sustain the lifestyles of the strong. They oppose the dehumanization of individuals, including the treatment of people as a disease. They realize that the luxury of a reset button to erase sexual responsibility (remember, 98.5% of U.S. abortions are not executed over rape or incest [Guttmacher Institute, 2005]) is just that, an indulgence, when it denies humanity to the most helpless members of our species.

They operate by the purest, most scientific standard for human rights (a living human individual) rather than establishing metrics of convenience.

In short, the defense of the unborn and the opposition of abortion is not bigotry. It is the purest tolerance you will find in the modern world.

Cole Buckon is a senior environmental engineering major.