Abortion Debate

Ensuring that abortion will again be a major issue in the 46th Congressional District race, two leading GOP opponents of Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-Garden Grove) are already attacking her for opposing a ban on the controversial partial-birth abortion procedure. Rather than defend her vote against the ban, Sanchez said she will try to steer the debate back to a general discussion of abortion and "the right to choose" by saying she, too, opposes late-term abortions, with certain exceptions.

The approval by Arkansas' Legislature on Wednesday of the nation's most restrictive abortion law raises a lot of questions. No, I don't mean the usual questions about when life begins or whether the government has a right to intrude in such an intensely personal decision; I don't presume to be able to answer those, nor could anybody do so in a way that would satisfy true believers on the other side. Mine are reserved for the state legislators: Have you guys really thought this thing through?

Confronting the nation's deep schism over abortion, President Obama on Sunday called for greater understanding on all sides and "open hearts, open minds, fair-minded words" on the issue as he spoke to graduates at one of America's premier Catholic universities. Obama emphasized the importance of common ground as opponents of abortion rights protested his appearance and the honorary degree he received from the University of Notre Dame.

PARK CITY, Utah - The Sundance Film Festival has a relaxed, down-to-earth vibe, but the atmosphere at the premiere screening of the documentary "After Tiller" was noticeably tense. For starters, police and armed sheriffs in green jumpsuits made a show of force outside the Temple Theater. Attendees had to have their bags searched and were checked by guards with hand-held metal detectors. After the movie screened, two police officers stood at the front of the auditorium as the directors of the abortion documentary - and the four doctors featured in the film - answered questions from the audience.

Regarding the abortion debate, it is interesting to note that those making the decisions are people who are already born. And remember, your mother was pro-life. ED SCHLOSSMAN Thousand Oaks

Re "Bringing clarity on abortion," Opinion, Aug. 23 What both sides need to focus on is this simple fact: Abortion is unequivocally the termination of human life. Regardless, all women must be allowed the freedom to carry out this difficult decision - no matter the circumstance - because the alternatives demand it. Further, women of means will always have access to this choice regardless of laws. You see, contrary to Meghan Daum's contention I, like most sentient people I know, am both pro-choice and anti-abortion; it is not an either-or proposition.

For months, Republicans on Capitol Hill had talked about slashing spending and downsizing the federal bureaucracy. But as a government shutdown threatened this week, the thorniest and most divisive of social issues again resurfaced: abortion rights. Republicans in the House were insisting that a final budget package include a provision to strip financing from Planned Parenthood, long a target of conservative ire. Democrats accused House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) of holding up a potential compromise on the 2011 budget over a last-minute insistence on including abortion-rights restrictions.

This post has been corrected. For details, see the note at the bottom. Premiering today at the Sundance Film Festival as part of the U.S. documentary competition, “After Tiller” is an intimate and heartfelt look at the four doctors performing third-trimester abortions in the United States, doing so even after the 2009 assassination of such a physician, Dr. George Tiller. Directed by Martha Shane and Lana Wilson, who spent almost three years on the project, the film brings an emotional clarity to an issue in which every nuanced turn of phrase has been made politically complicated.

Re "Turning point," Opinion, Aug. 23 Unfortunately, the call for action by the platforms of both the Republican and Democratic parties in 1944, asking for the admission of refugees fleeing the Holocaust in Europe, was too little, too late. In the absence of any real action, only a minuscule number of Jews were saved. Platforms are meaningless without prompt action. Now we are faced with a similar situation, with Iran, a state whose president called for Israel to be wiped off the map, openly building up its nuclear capabilities.

Re "Early warnings," Aug. 23 Detection of biological attacks on the United States is rapidly evolving and improving. The controversy regarding the high frequency of false alarms by BioWatch, the government's system for detecting such attacks, should be balanced by the fact that there are no or a very low frequency of false negative results (failure to detect the disease-causing agent). If there was a bioterrorism attack on my city, I would feel more comfortable having a system with BioWatch's false-negative rate keeping watch.

Re "Ryan Shrugged: A parable," Opinion, Aug. 22 Here's my novel to follow-up on Michael Kinsley's preamble to his parable about Paul Ryan, with the title, "A Tale of Two Pieties. " Introduction: It was the best of times, when "I grew up reading Ayn Rand and it taught me quite a bit about who I am and what my value systems are and what my beliefs are" (from a speech in 2005). It is now the worst of times, when: "I reject her philosophy. It's an atheist philosophy" (from an interview this April)

Re "Bringing clarity on abortion," Opinion, Aug. 23 What both sides need to focus on is this simple fact: Abortion is unequivocally the termination of human life. Regardless, all women must be allowed the freedom to carry out this difficult decision - no matter the circumstance - because the alternatives demand it. Further, women of means will always have access to this choice regardless of laws. You see, contrary to Meghan Daum's contention I, like most sentient people I know, am both pro-choice and anti-abortion; it is not an either-or proposition.

Like any sentient person, I was appalled by Missouri Republican Congressman Todd Akin's comments about "legitimate rape. " I was shocked by the Limbaugh-ian proportions of his ignorance about the female reproductive system ("in cases of legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down") and remain flabbergasted that he hasn't caved in to party pressure to quit his Senate campaign. But unlike the many people proclaiming their outrage on Facebook and Twitter, I'm actually grateful to Akin.

POCATELLO, Idaho - When Pocatello police got a tip that Jennie Linn McCormack had ended her pregnancy by taking an abortion drug obtained over the Internet, they showed up at her apartment one cold January day in 2011 and demanded an explanation. McCormack eventually took them out to her back porch, where the remains of her fetus were on the barbecue, wrapped up in a plastic bag and a cardboard box. "My baby is in the box," McCormack said. Officers uncovered the frozen remains of a 5-month-old fetus and erected crime scene tape around the porch before taking her to the police station and charging her with a felony.

Fine performances and authentic emotion trump some heavy-handed speechifying in co-directing brothers Andrew and Jon Erwin's faith-based, anti-abortion drama "October Baby," a film whose poignancy is hard to deny whatever side of the abortion debate you fall on. Following an intriguing first act in which health-challenged 19-year-old Hannah (Rachel Hendrix) learns that she was actually adopted (after surviving a failed late-term abortion), Jon Erwin and Theresa Preston's script stumbles with lame attempts at humor and "hipness" as Hannah sets off on a road trip with friends - in an unreliable old VW bus, no less - to track down her biological mom. A forced hotel stop involving Hannah and childhood pal and co-traveler Jason (Jason Burkey)