To the Editor of The Observer:

I am writing this letter to send a simple message to the four young men who decided to stand outside the SURC today and protest a woman’s right to choose: shame on you all. How dare you presume to judge women who have chosen to undergo the abortion procedure? No person makes this choice gladly, as it is a procedure that causes both immense physical and emotional stress. How dare you, in your privilege as men in a patriarchal society, presume to tell a woman what they can or cannot do with their own body? This attitude, that men are the ones who ought to dictate how others conduct themselves, is a medieval one and has no place in a society that strives to allow a greater agency for all its people. Furthermore, I know one of you men standing with your signs showing distasteful images of aborted fetuses and I know that you profess to have a profound Christian faith. I would remind of the words of your lord and savior who, when a group of men decided to judge a woman for the choices she made regarding her own body, simply declared, “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone” (John 8:7). Have you forgotten the universal dictate of Christ’s Sermon on the Mount, that one should, “Judge not, lest ye be judged” (Matthew 7:1)? If your goal in shaming women, in judging those whose shoes you have never once walked in, in disturbing the beauty of simple winter’s day, was to be Christ-like then I assure you, you abjectly failed. Christ knew, as all people of goodwill know, that this world needs more forgiveness and less judgement. I hope you take time to look upon the words you claim to hold dear and use them to develop a greater sense of empathy than what you have now.

Sincerely,

Connor L Simons