Sigh. It seems once again the topic of pro-abortion versus anti-abortion has reared its ugly head. It makes its rounds every year as a good fallback for opinion columnists who have no more pressing, relevant topics to rabble on about to the student body, like the police state that controls the dorms on campus or the fact that as a “flagship institution of learning,” our library is closed during midterms for a football game. But I digress. Matt Lousteau’s column Friday is not the first of its kind, and, like it says in its tag line, it doesn’t use fear to try to dissuade you from aborting an unwanted pregnancy. This method is overdone, anyway. Instead, he uses the tried and true, “Nuff said,” approach, which  tries to bash you over the head with “obvious” facts that would support the notion that getting an abortion is the same as killing your whole family in a fit of insanity. How you feel about this, in the light of this letter, is irrelevant. The facts that he presents, however, are not. Firstly, how is it, that “Scientists can attest to the humanity of a fetus.” Apparently humanity itself must be redefined, because the criteria for humanity given by Lousteau — 23 chromosomes — does not apply to human zygotes. Last time I checked — and as a biological sciences senior, it was recently — humans have 46 chromosomes upon fertilization. The organism Lousteau described as most human is closest to something that resembles a Chinese hamster.  After only just gracing his readers with his scientific prowess, Lousteau immediately jumps in the next sentence to the fact that the term, “fetus” is just more liberal rhetoric to make you feel better about abortion. Actually, “fetus” itself is the accurate scientific term used to describe the stage of any developing mammal before birth and after its “ball of cells” stage. I guess science just has a liberal bias when it’s convenient. Beside the fact that Lousteau should do some actual research before sitting down to write a column that has been written a million times, this article also brings to light a fatal flaw in this type of rhetoric that I see not only in this paper, but in this debate everywhere else as well. We get it, you hate abortions. But what other options has Lousteau presented? What grand, life-saving, murder-stopping proposal has he given that would stop unwanted pregnancies from happening, make pregnancies in young, frightened women easier, or find money and homes to provide for the huge onslaught of unwanted children that would result if everyone put their newborn up for adoption? The answer is zero. Like most people in the anti-abortion/pro-abortion debate, Mr. Lousteau can’t see past his hatred of the other side to do anything positive to stop it. Though he may not see it, everyone, including pro-abortion activists, really wants the same thing: fewer abortions. But instead of the constant focus on outlawing them, why do we not focus on the reasons people feel they need them? This may be a more complex and difficult set of questions to answer and may actually involve evaluating ourselves as a people and a nation, which can be hard, especially for people steeped in “values” like Lousteau. Only then can we move on from this tired old debate and actually get something done to help both the women of the U.S., and all their unborn “fetuses.”Bridgette Eganbiological sciences senior