To the Sentinel:
While I read the story of Maria Haluschkewych’s ordeal as a 16-year-old Polish captive in in Germany during World War II, I was horrified by the mutilating medical experiments on children that she described. However, the explicit description of doctors plunging scalpels into “young bellies and chests, removing beating hearts and warm livers,” shockingly brought to mind the description of what is going on everyday in our communities with our knowledge and, yes, our consent. “Abortion stops a beating heart” is not just a nice platitude, it is a reality. Partial birth abortion where scissors are jammed into the base of the baby’s skull and the brains are sucked out is also a reality. If we don’t acknowledge and protect the greatest right we have, “that of life,” what value can any other right have? This is not just a religious issue, it’s a moral issue. No society can succeed when it kills its most vulnerable members.

Donna Roodhous
McMinnville