To the editor:

I read Sam Balzac’s letter to you of Aug. 5 with interest. In it, he decries the very presence of Heartbeat International in Saranac Lake as “an attack on women’s rights.” His position is an archetypical example of everything wrong with the agenda of the radical left. Under the guise of “enlightenment” and “tolerance,” its objectives are more properly characterized as coercive and even Orwellian.

First, Planned Parenthood has been suffered to exist in this community for many years. It is jointly responsible for the liquidation of 50 million nascent lives in the U.S. since Roe vs. Wade in 1973. Its founder, Margaret Sanger, was a proponent of eugenics — bent on weeding out the most helpless and marginalized among us, those she deemed undeserving of subsistence or procreation. This in itself speaks volumes about the contempt she and her progeny have for the sanctity for human life.

Contrast this legacy noir with the mission statement of Heartbeat International, which is “to reach and rescue as many lives as possible, around the world, through an effective network of life-affirming pregnancy help, to renew communities for life.” And yet, in some twisted way, Mr. Balzac confuses this with “an attack” on women’s rights.

In this specific context, it appears very clear to many of us — and I believe, at least tacitly, even those of Mr. Balzac’s ilk — that two things are going on here:

1. This euphemistic crusade, couched in terms of women’s “rights” and “choices,” is actually a front, on an inconceivably massive scale, for the enabling of systemic societal indulgence, with little or no consequences.

2. For whatever reason, with discretion, they are intent on insuring that as many abortions as humanly possible are actually carried out. Why else would anyone object so vehemently to the very existence of an organization that would dare to offer an alternative — in this case — life?

Austin Aaronson

Saranac Lake