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Charles Pope (Daily Bee, March 21), correctly exposes the inconsistency of the Bonner County Human Rights Task Force and like organizations regarding abortion.

BCHRTF president Brenda Hammond (Daily Bee, April 11) says, “For example, the question of when a fetus becomes a human being is one that is not in the purview of science and certainly not of government.” Yet, in the name of government she assumes that abortion is a legitimate moral choice when she equates it with the First Amendment. That’s not a neutral stance. Welcome to reality. You are affirming the position that abortion is a legitimate moral choice.

Hammond closes by adding, “We see it as a contradiction to — on the one hand — affirm an individual’s right to their own beliefs, and then adopt a principle that would dictate what to believe about abortion.” Welcome to the real world. You’re not neutral. If torturing babies became a legal protected right, would Brenda take this same stance with her First Amendment logic? The “neutral” position, which holds that the law should allow people to make up their own minds, assumes that abortion is a legitimate moral choice. I’m afraid this is what Brenda does when she puts killing babies on par with the right to freely worship for example. Thus we can say with all seriousness then that BCHRTF and organizations like it, perhaps unwittingly, affirm that killing unborn babies is a legitimate moral right akin to the rights expressed in the First Amendment. Perhaps the BCHRTF is the contradiction.

TIM KNAPP

Clark Fork