Until last week I don't think I ever realized what the abortion rights debate is all about.

Being a typical college male, the issue was not one that effected me personally. Then I attended the candlelight vigil at Old Main sponsored by the "pro-life" movement.

Up until that point, I truly believed I lived in America, the country founded on religious freedom, where the church and state were completely separate. The decidedly Christian theme of the vigil, however, brought home the fact that a great deal of "pro-life" argument is religiously rooted.

If this is true, then isn't overturning Roe vs. Wade a case of the Constitution being compromised for a primarily religiously-based belief about when personhood begins?

I have heard some arguments that the anti-choice stance is one concerned with morality, not religious ideals: it is morally wrong to abort a fetus. Standing in the cold at the vigil, watching a religious leader speak and the crowd bow their heads in Christian prayer, I found that hard to believe.

I myself am Catholic, and I have many strong feelings based on my faith about what is morally right or wrong. I cannot, however, believe that it is constitutionally just for myself or the Catholic church (which comprises only about 25 percent of the American population) to impose these views on others.

It seems to me that this is exactly what the "pro-life" movement and the Catholic hierarchy are doing!

I guess it took the vigil to open my eyes to exactly what the sides are in the abortion rights debate. Anyone who believes in the ideas of Thomas Jefferson and the founding fathers must realize that "one nation under God" is not to be taken literally.