On a regular basis, Ellen Goodman's column displays profound intellectual bankruptcy and dramatic moral inconsistency written by an intelligent, educated, and probably caring individual.

      She represents a large segment of our society that i)protests all wars and cruelty to non-human animals, promotes governmental protection of vegetation and support of prenatal care, and yet passionately and self-righteously supports the right to kill unborn humans, ii)believes in macroevolution despite the fact that the preponderance of scientific evidence supports a Designer, iii)believes that Separation of Church and State means no invocation whatsoever of God in matters of State though it is clear from historical documents that that was not the intention of the founders of our Nation.

      It is not true that a monument to the Ten Commandments in a public place violates "Separation of Church and State". Goodman's recent column takes the fallacy a step further by making an irrational comparison of Islamic theocracy to those organized in their support of keeping the Ten Commandments in the Alabama Courthouse. Having prayer, the Ten Commandments, or other references to God displayed in a public place is by no means a violation of our Constitution or Bill of Rights. A call to public worship was commonly woven into resolutions of our two Houses of Representation and in our presidential speeches as early as George Washington and John Adams. Those speeches and resolutions included calling for fasting and prayer, even appointing specific days for national fasting and praying, and they would not hesitate to invoke "Almighty God". George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and other Founding Fathers, in various writings, deemed God and religion as being absolutely necessary to the governance of people. The authors of the Constitution, First Amendment, and the letter from which we get the term "Separation of Church and State"--they supported the use of government funds for evangelizing Native Americans, supporting Christian "Divinity" Departments in government schools, and other activities that Goodman and her ilk would find offensive.

      By the distortions commonly fed to us, good people have been bamboozled into believing things that have no sound basis. Common media images include bloody soldiers, civilians, and harbor seals, as well as ravaged rain forests--but you do not see in our popular media pictures of the mangled, shredded, dismembered, chemically-burned bodies of our aborted unborn children. More people conceived in the USA are killed in 2 weeks by abortion than were killed in the entire Vietnam War. We are bombarded in public education (grade school through college) with the assumed "truth" of macroevolution but get no presentation of the preponderance of scientific research findings that speak against it. Fallacies are promoted about the "Separation of Church and State" issue instead of educating us about its original purpose or the true intention and context of our First Amendment about religious freedom.

      I was pleasantly surprised by the honesty in a recent Newsweek (by no means a pro-life publication) cover article. It included photos of the clearly human features of unborn children at early stages. One of the themes in that article was that many previous supporters of abortion rights are rethinking their views because of knowledge about the embryo and fetus that comes from such developments as higher resolution ultrasound images and surgery done on fetuses in the womb. Critical information supporting the humanity of the unborn has been available for decades from esteemed organizations such as the National Institutes of Health (by no means a pro-life organization). The unborn child's humanity has been graphically available for decades in pictures of their aborted bodies. The NIH findings and conclusions and the photos of aborted babies have been kept out of the popular media.

      Though we have been duped, that is no excuse for ongoing absurdity. There comes a time in the development of responsible adulthood when we must grapple with our inconsistencies, investigate issues that shape society before we develop opinions, consider the possibility that we have been wrong, and strive for a level of honesty and integrity that will lead to intellectual soundness and moral consistency that we can pass on to our progeny. If this does not occur, our nation and its people will suffer further decline.

Annie Bukacek MD