According to my Funk & Wagnalls, the word represent means “to serve as the expression symbol, or designation of.” Therefore, John Baldacci, as U.S. representative in Congress for Maine’s 2nd District, and Sens. Cohen and Snowe have the job, paid for by taxpayers and voters, to serve as the expression, symbol or designation of the people of the district.

Apparently, Rep. Baldacci has a rather grim view of the people of the 2nd District. His recent vote to oppose a ban on partial birth abortion apparently indicates his belief that his constituents support this most grotesque procedure. The bill, HR 1833, would ban the procedure except when the life of the mother is endangered. It passed in the House 288-139 and now awaits votes in the Senate, including votes by pro-abortion senatorsCohen and Snowe.

A partial birth abortion involves partially delivering a live, 6- or 7-month premature baby (except for the head), and then jamming scissors into the baby’s skull. The scissors are then opened to enlarge the hole in order to insert a suction catheter to suck the child’s brain out. Only 3 more inches and a tug of the doctor’s hands and this would be homicide.

Dr. Martin Haskell performed more than 1,000 of these abortions to date and has admitted on tape that 80 percent of the abortions were done for purely elective reasons. Another doctor has written that he has performed a “series” of “more than 2,000” of these abortions.

Even the Legislative Committee of the American Medical Association voted unanimously to recommend AMA endorsement of the partial birth abortion ban.

Rep. Baldacci’s vote is a disgrace to the good and caring people of the 2nd District. Perhaps he feared that admitting partial birth abortions were wrong also would call into question the other 1.3 million abortions a year done by different methods. When you are committed to abortion 100 percent, it really does get uncomfortable. Christopher Coughlan Executive director Maine Right to Life Committee Augusta