Payson's Spiritual Malpractice

February 13, 2003
letters@telegram.com

fax: 508 793-9313

The Rev. Aaron R. Payson appears to be guilty of Spiritual malpractice in his ‘As I See It’ editorial, (Telegram and Gazette, Jan.27). Pro “Abortion-Choice” advocates like Payson, who is a man of the cloth, cannot on the one-hand proclaim that women are moral agents capable of making difficult choices, yet on the other-hand obscure, ignore and deny the facts necessary in order to make those informed moral choices.

Payson ignores these fetal facts; The unique genetic code forms at conception, immediately the embryonic cells orient in a head to toe fashion, at three weeks a heart beat, brain waves at 40 days with fingers, toes, eyes and face visible to those who will look, all before the earliest abortions are performed.
Consider one more fact. On January 26, 1980, the British Medical Journal published an article entitled “What the Fetus Feels” by Volman & Pearson. A pertinent quote, “Try sticking an 8 week old human fetus in the palm of his hand. He opens his mouth and pulls his hand away.”

Rev. Payson says these difficult choices can be constructive, though certainly not for the child or fetus that is aborted. Isn’t Rev. Payson guilty of spiritual malpractice for counseling women to follow their unformed conscience while he withholds these facts of when life begins? A man of the cloth must be held to a higher standard. 43,358,592 abortions, or opportunities to feel constructive in Payson’s parlance, begs the question; what were we as a Nation thinking when Roe vs. Wade allowed unrestricted abortions, anytime, anywhere, for anyone, for any reason?

Jay G