Tony Demangone (March 13) misrepresents the pro-choice stance when he claims that it has nothing to say about the morality of abortion. He seems to imply that pro-choicers simply throw up their hands and decline to say what is right or wrong.

In any society, if the citizens are to live together peacefully there must be a moral code to guide decent and caring behavior toward one another. There will never be total agreement between individuals as to the exact nature of this code. As an atheist I do not believe the "correct" moral code is handed down by God. Rather each society needs to face the messy reality of life and somehow come up with a system that serves the majority and is fair to individuals.

The pro-choice argument is that until a certain point in a pregnancy the fetus cannot be considered a human being. My own view is that as long as the fetus cannot survive independently, it is not a separate entity but rather a part of the woman's body. In this case, it is not that it is "right" to abort --rather it is not wrong. This is a moral position. It's not a question of right or wrong -- it's a question of wrong or not wrong. And pro-choicers do make that decision. As long as something is not wrong, it is simply a matter of the person's choice whether to do it or not. If the woman does not feel physically or emotionally ready to continue the pregnancy, then she is justified in aborting. Certainly she may be wracked with guilt, and so it is the duty of those who care for her to be supportive and reassure her that she has not committed a sin.

Of course there is disagreement about when the fetus becomes a human being, or that it is not human at any stage. Some believe that as soon as the sperm fertilizes the ovum, you have a human being with a right to life. Catholics even believe that stopping the sperm from entering the body with a condom is morally wrong because it prevents a life. What next? Saying "no" to sex is immoral? The point is that we all draw our lines somewhere, and the only arguments about the best place to draw the line that make sense to me are the ones based on reason and science. For example, in his book Developmental Biology, Gilbert states that contrary to the claims of a popular anti-abortion film: "the human cerebral cortex has not neuronal connections at 12 weeks gestation (and therefore cannot move in response to thought, nor experience consciousness or fear). Measurable electrical activity characterisitic of neural cells ... is first seen at seven months gestation."

I think it would be great if all women who got pregnant accidentally and didn't want to keep their baby would carry on and give the baby up for adoption. But I don't believe we have the right to tell the woman what to do with her body. And that is a moral position.