To the Editor:

Contrary to the inclusive philosophical premise of our nation, the philosophy of all oppression holds that rights are granted or denied to the powerless based on criteria the powerful choose to recognize. This philosophy can be thought of as the central dogma of a non-theistic, idolatrous cult which worships human reason as competent to choose exclusionary criteria for membership in human community. The sects of this cult are defined by their criteria for excluding others. Thus, the Racist sect excludes people on the basis of ethnicity, the Creedists on the basis of religion, the Birthists on the basis of prenatal or postnatal status, etc.

Because this philosophy rationalizes the termination, truncation, cutting short or "aborting" of human rights, the term "Abortionism" characterizes both the cult and its unifying dogma. Power is a major idol of the cult (see Orwell's 1984), especially the power to choose whose lives or liberties may be terminated or "aborted". A Birthist Abortionite mantra neatly captures this with the question "Who decides?"

Will we ever learn to recognize and reject this cult and all its destructive choices?