William H. Slavick presents an elaborate defense of pro-choice Catholic politicians in his article “Co-opting Catholics” (Oct. 17). However, his argument is no more than a politically correct excuse for the failure of Catholic politicians to oppose abortion “as the law of the land.” He refers disdainfully to those who are fervent in the pro-life movement as “every self-appointed guardian of the unborn” and as “right-to-lifers whose interest in life too often ends at birth.”

The upshot of his article is to support Sen. Kerry as “more in tune with the Catholic moral vision.” Sen. Kerry has referred to Catholic teaching against abortion as an “article of faith,” which he will not impose on the American people.

Mr. Slavick and Sen. Kerry, however, misrepresent the Catholic Church’s teaching on abortion. Mother Teresa referred to abortion as the greatest poverty of our day. Pope John Paul II in his encyclical “The Gospel of Life” affirms that ending the life of the unborn is a grave moral evil, and that such moral law is embedded in the hearts of all human beings.

The Catholic Catechism states: “abortion and infanticide are abominable crimes” and that “… abortion willed either as an end or as a means is gravely contrary to the moral law.”

Belief that abortion is a grave moral evil is much more than an “article of faith” and cries out against its justification as the “law of the land.”

Maurice Theriault, Lewiston

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