After reading the op-ed entitled, “The missing variable in the fairness equation” (March 11) we feel conscience-bound to point out to those pushing for a law to allow tax dollars, from MaineCare, to be used to pay for abortions, that there can never be any fairness, because they have left out the most important variable in the fairness equation – the babies.

It is impossible, for those of us who understand the scientific fact, that life begins at the moment of conception to allow our taxes to provide for a medical procedure that can harm women and kills their unborn children.

Also, it was disappointing to read, that in a recent poll, “70 percent of self-identified Catholics agreed that MaineCare should cover abortions.” This goes against the teaching of the church, which opposes abortion.

It was also alarming to read that the author of the act, that would provide the funding, Maine Senate President Beth Edmonds has aligned herself with abortion providers (the largest of which is Planned Parenthood), who have made millions of dollars by providing “48,589,993 abortions during the years 1973 to 2006,” according to the Guttmacher Institute, Planned Parenthood’s research affiliate.

Surely, the state of Maine can find better ways to use our taxes to help poor women than to expose them to a potentially harmful medical procedure and the deadly effect of abortion on “the missing variable in the fairness equation” – Maine’s most precious resource: the babies.

Herbert and Cecile Hecker, Lewiston