The boys featured in last week’s cover story (“The Rhythm Method,” 5/26), along with the rest of the so-called pro-life movement, continuously get a number of things wrong:

1) Nobody is pro-abortion. The pro-choice movement believes the decision whether and when to bear children is between a woman, her physician, and her god. I personally believe in preventing unwanted pregnancy. The pro-choice movement also believes in contraception.

2) They continually ignore science. There is nothing to indicate that hormonal birth-control methods cause abortions. If there is no ovulation, which is how these methods work, then conception cannot occur. Their opposition to contraception would cause more unwanted pregnancies.

3) Abortion did not suddenly begin in 1973 when Roe v. Wade was decided. Some U.S. states did have legal abortion before then. Women who could afford it would go to a place where it was legal; women who couldn’t would resort to dangerous back-alley practitioners, whereby many died or were rendered sterile.

I also have to wonder what they have to say when a woman or a girl carries a pregnancy to term and then kills the child at birth. They don’t seem to be particularly concerned about all the death taking place among those who are already born. With a few exceptions, they’re not against the war or the death penalty—although I have to thank those who do oppose the war and capital punishment for their consistency. How many of them support programs that help children in poor families?

Far too many people who call themselves pro-life act as if life begins at conception and ends at birth. As a proud pro-choice vegan, I believe in protecting the lives of the people who are already here.

Adams Morgan