No doubt an untold number of your readers have lost sleep since reading last week’s paper when I ran out of space to make my point re: the mouse whose innards were shown hanging from the hawk’s mouth (“All life is sacred,” published March 12).

The same folks who may have been grieving over the killing of innocent cattle might well have had no problem with the hawk eating the mouse. After all, hawks need to eat something! It’s all about survival.

These might well be the folks that condone abortion, arguing that the impregnated woman needs to have the ability to terminate her pregnancy in order survive happily and to be in control “of her body”. As much as I believe the life of the preborn child should be protected, I concede that the mother’s life is of equal value, so in the sad case of a tubal pregnancy I acknowledge that drastic measures sometimes must be taken so that the life of the mother is protected. If that is the reason you needed to end a pregnancy please understand that this letter is not aimed at you.

But in the case of most abortions which result only because the pregnancy was unplanned I suggest a better approach to avoiding an abortion is to simply avoid getting pregnant in the first place. There was once an ethic that was common in our culture which said, “Save yourself for you wedding night”.

But realistically I also understand that “life happens”…literally. And when it does I believe the child, planned or not, should not pay the death penalty for his or her parent’s mistake.

I believe the child was an unexpected and unwanted surprise the mother has two humane choices:

1) Keep the baby, knowing that there are numerus charities that would be glad to help provide her do just that, or

2) Allow the child to be placed into the loving arms of someone who may never have had the blessing of bearing and raising her own biological child.

I believe it’s certainly a better option than sentencing the unborn boy or girl to the fate of the mouse in the beak of the hawk.

Mark Akers

Enumclaw