As typically happens on the topic of abortion, both sides have such a pitiful way of messaging. Both pro-life and pro-choice groups often spend more time labeling the other side as hateful rather than actually looking at the topic with compassion. Pro-life groups sling mud on one side saying that pro-choice people hate babies; pro-choice groups sling mud the other way claiming that pro-life activists hate women having choice.

John Speer, in his opinion piece “Anti-abortion groups should back up opinion with facts,” fails to mention one fact. John spends much time talking about the comparison of pro-life groups to the civil right movement stating, “The last time I checked, I don’t remember being in the womb, much less fighting for my rights within it.”

Are rights now defined by if you can remember past events? I hardly remember anything before the age of 5, but to say a child has no rights because he won’t remember anyways in a few years is as you put it a “dangerously asinine assumption.”

Here is what is needed for the discussion from both sides:

Pro-life people: Does a woman have rights to her body and if so, what limits are you proposing? For many pro-life advocates, they would desire that even if the mother’s health in danger, she should have the baby anyway. Sometimes both survive, sometimes neither. But those scenarios are full of unknowns and uncertainties; it is impossible for anyone to make a fully informed decision.

Pro-choice: When is a baby considered a person? John avoids answering that question by simply saying that there is no consensus, and I guess therefore concludes that babies have no rights whatsoever. This makes his argument just as inhumane as he tries to make the other side’s argument appear.

The fact is that, according to U.S. Census Bureau (that’s how you use facts), about 46 percent of abortions in 2007 were repeat patients. This is a number that I would think both sides would like to see reduced. Instead of arguing legislation (one of the most difficult methods of change), why don’t we work together to get information to those who are having abortions and to teens, educate them and together reduce the number of abortions.

Jeremy Hamilton is a senior majoring in computer science.