01:00 AM EDT on Tuesday, May 23, 2006

This letter is in reply to your editorial "South Dakota abortion ban" (March 11), which states, "Some say that a human being is formed at conception. This, however, is a philosophic or religious view."

That a human embryo is a human being is a self-evident and scientific fact. Human beings procreate human beings. A human embryo has the same human DNA for the rest of his or her life on the face of this earth. The only thing the human embryo needs that it does not contain within itself is nutrition and sustenance. The reason the human embryo implants itself in the wall of the uterus is to get those.

The question of whether an embryo or fetus is a "person" who comes under the protection of the law is a legal and constitutional issue. Since the human embryo is a human being, it should automatically be a person protected under the Rhode Island and U.S. constitutions. Any legal system that does not endow all human beings with the inalienable right to life and does not protect that right is evil.

The editorial opposes abortion "in the third trimester." Why? Does the human embryo become a human being "in the third trimester"? What was it before the third trimester? Does "viability" make it a human being? What was it before "viability"?

The intentional killing of an innocent baby human being is always evil. Time, place, or stage of development is no excuse.

BERNARD LEFOLEY

Coventry