To the editor:

Regardless of whether abortion is right or wrong, the topic doesn’t belong in politics. But churches and Republicans keep trying to make it a political issue.

It’s your right to hold the Biblical opinion that women need to be controlled by men. It’s your right to agree with your church’s anti-abortion stance — despite no mention of abortion in either the Old or New Testament. It’s your right to get emotional about the implication of “killing babies.” Nonetheless, your beliefs have nothing to do with our government or the Constitution.

The “right-to-life” movement entered politics in the 1970s along with fraud-indicted televangelist Jerry Falwell and his Moral Majority. Abortion shouldn’t have been made a political football then and it shouldn’t be one now. If the church wants to pull on the heartstrings of moral conscience by telling a woman she’s going straight to Hell for having an abortion, that’s their right.

But it’s not the place of Republicans to exploit an anti-abortion stance just to reel in conservative voters or manipulate opinion by insinuating that the “other” party are murderers. It’s not the place of the government to judge women and deny a medical procedure. Ultimately, a woman must have the freedom to struggle with her own personal values and life decisions about abortion.

Republicans may use the religious issue of abortion to paint themselves as being on moral high ground. But spiritual guidance on abortion belongs in the hands of authentic church leaders where it’s been in the past.

I think politicians should stick to their job of helping to run the government and supporting our democracy. And maybe they should spend a little more time doing that, instead of soliciting campaign donations from anti-abortion churches and organizations.

Martha Hodges

Massena