Letter 268

Once again, pro-choicers have dragged out the old lie about illegal abortions being done by "back-alley butchers."

Since there are plenty of filthy legal abortion mills, we can assume that there were at least some filthy illegal abortion mills. But they were hardly the norm.

The Search for an Abortionist found that over 90 percent of illegal abortions were done by doctors.

In his book Babies by Choice or by Chance, published in 1959, Planned Parenthood's own Alan Guttmacher wrote, "The technique of the well-accredited criminal abortionist is usually good. They have to be good to stay in business, since otherwise they would be extremely vulnerable to police action."

A Woman's Book of Choices says, "Sympathetic doctors readily used any excuse, no matter how flimsy, to do what came in late pre-Roe days to be called 'therapeutic abortions.'"

Many of these so-called "therapeutic abortions" killed women, but that wasn't because abortion was illegal. It was because abortion is dangerous. We should restore criminal status, and once again put abortionists who kill women in jail, where they belong.

Letter 269

Pro-choicers continue to use the old lie that illegal abortions killed 5,000 to 10,000 women every year.

Bernard Nathanson, co-founder of the National Abortion Rights Action League, said, "I confess that I knew the figures were totally false, and I suppose others did too if they stopped to think of it. But in the ‘morality' of the revolution, it was a useful figure, widely accepted, so why go out of our way to correct it with honest statistics. The overriding concern was to get the laws eliminated, and anything within reason which had to be done was permissible."

Abortion guru Christopher Tietze called the 10,000 number "unmitigated nonsense."

Planned Parenthood's medical director, Mary Calderone, put the number at under 300 a year.

Granted, even one death is one too many. But you have to question the logic of people who would look at a criminal activity, observe that it kills women, and declare that the activity should be legalized.

Letter 270

Pro-abortion activists claim that if abortion is illegal, "women will be forced to go to back-alley butchers."

First of all, in the U.S., the law never held a gun to any woman's head and forced her to have an abortion. Abortion was more of a choice when it was illegal and it was harder for family, boyfriends, and social workers to browbeat women into it.

But more important is the lie about the "back-alley butchers."

Pro-choice writings are full of stories of how women and doctors lied and finagled to evade abortion laws. Reporting fake rapes, feigning mental illness, and claiming to be having a miscarriage are encouraged among women. Dishonest doctors have even more options. One gynecologist reportedly told the authors of A Woman's Book of Choices that if abortion became illegal, he would "do a lot more endometrial biopsies," which the authors translated as, "he will do abortions under the guise of diagnostic procedures. He also noted that many of his colleagues had expressed similar intentions."

This is the kind of behavior abortion advocates find admirable: not only evading the law, but stealing from insurance companies!

Are we to write our laws based on the whims of such a dishonest bunch? If anything, we should tighten up fraud laws to make it harder to get away with such stunts. These people should be ashamed of themselves. But if they aren't ashamed of being abortionists, I guess it's unreasonable to expect them to be ashamed of lying and cheating.

Letter 271

Once again PBS has aired the film Leona's Sister Gerri. The film tells the story of Geraldine Santoro, who died of a botched criminal abortion. A photograph of her nude body, found in a motel room in June 1964, became a rallying point for abortion advocates.

The point of view espoused by the filmmaker, Jane Gillooly, is the standard pro-abortion clichŽ that laws against abortion caused Gerri's death.

That is like showing a photograph of an accident victim thrown from a car, and blaming the death on seat belt laws. If Gerri had obeyed the law, she would not have died.

Abortion advocates claim that abortion was Gerri's only option: she feared that her estranged husband would kill her if he learned she was pregnant by another man.

If abortion advocates are pro-woman, why was Gerri's death used as an argument for legalized abortion? Why did they not use Gerri's story to show the need for tougher domestic abuse laws? Why would they have been content to leave Gerri living in fear as long as she could kill her child legally? What message are they giving wife beaters? That it's okay to beat your wife, as long as she can get a legal abortion.

I have to question the priorities of the people who've been exploiting Gerri all these years.

Letter 272

Abortion agitators are passing out a leaflet featuring a photo of Geraldine Santoro, dead on a motel room floor after a botched criminal abortion.

Yes, it is true that before Roe v. Wade, women died from criminal abortions. When they did, their abortionists went to jail. Granted, their sentences were lenient, considering that the actions of these butchers cost young women their lives. But they made it plain that killing women by abortion would be punished.

What about abortionists who kill, maim, or rape their patients today? What happens to them? For the most part, the answer is: nothing. After all, their victims were having legal abortions so they don't count. You never see a pro-choicer with photos of any of these women. In fact, whenever they're mentioned, the abortion-industry response is to defend the abortionist. These people truly are disgusting.

Letter 273

Our local abortion agitators are leafleting against the proposed abortion law. One leaflet features a photo of a nude woman, dead on a motel room floor after a botched criminal abortion.

The woman in the photo is Geraldine Santoro, who died in June of 1964.

To show a photo of Geraldine Santoro and claim that anti-abortion laws killed her is nonsensical. It's like showing photos of the hitchhiker killed by serial killer Henry Lee Lucas, and claiming that she died because of laws against hitchhiking. Nobody ever forgets that she died because Henry Lee Lucas chose to kill her. Laws against hitchhiking exist to protect people from murderers like Henry Lee Lucas.

When pro-abortion people look at the photo of Geraldine, they forget that some pro-choicer took instruments in hand, poked around inside Geraldine's body, fatally injured her, and left her to die alone. Had this man obeyed the law, Geraldine would not have died. This is a point abortion fanatics always miss. It was not the law that killed women. It was their staunch refusal to obey a law implemented for their safety. The laws existed to protect them from butchers like the man who killed Geraldine Santoro. Next time some abortion fanatic screams about women who died from illegal abortions, remind him that the blood is on his hands, not ours.

Now there are no laws to protect women from butcher abortionists. Women are lied to and are told that abortion is safe because it is legal. And they often end up raped, maimed, or dead. The only difference is that the person who did it no longer goes to jail.

Who are our abortion activist friends really trying to protect?

Letter 274

Abortion advocates have been spouting off their usual line, "If abortion is outlawed, women will again be forced to go to back-alley butchers."

This is a lie on many counts. It claims that "back-alley" abortions were common before abortion was legalized, that women aren't dying from abortions now, and that women are forced to have abortions. The goal of this statement is to implant an image in the public's mind of the countryside being littered with the bodies of women slaughtered by botched abortions. Classic emotional blackmail.

First, let's get our terminology correct. When these guys moved from the back alleys to Main Street, that didn't change what they were one bit. They were morally degenerate butchers when they were in the back alleys, and they're morally degenerate butchers today.

Secondly, most illegal abortions didn't occur because women were forced to have them. In The Search for an Abortionist, Nancy Howell Lee's investigation of the pre-Roe criminal abortion network, "the picture presented is one of women quite unambivalently rejecting the pregnancy." Each woman consulted an average of six people to find an abortionist. In other words, before Roe, abortions were reserved for women who really wanted them and were willing to go to a lot of trouble to get them. This hardly sounds like being "forced."

Legalizing abortion only changed two things: it became easier to browbeat women into abortions, and abortionists no longer went to jail for botching them. Only an abortionist could consider that an improvement.

Letter 275

Abortion advocates have been complaining, "If abortion is outlawed, women will again be forced to go to back-alley butchers."

I'll let the "back-alley butchers" myth slide for the moment. Instead, I'll address those situations in which women and girls are indeed forced to have abortions: legal abortions. Today, young girls are being emotionally--and sometimes physically--forced to have abortions by their parents, boyfriends, boyfriend's parents, and so forth. Grown women are sometimes similarly forced to have abortions, usually by the one who got them pregnant. Anyone who doesn't believe that this happens should spend some time in front of an abortion mill. Women and girls going into those places will tell you that someone is pressuring them to do so. Often you will see them physically compelled, dragged by the arms, crying. My question is: What is the abortion industry doing about that force? Of course, as we all know, the answer is absolutely nothing. And not only that, they're not going to! After all, for them, that particular force is profitable. The fact is, the only people who are trying to see that women aren't forced to have abortions are the pro-lifers.

Letter 276

In yesterday's rally, abortion advocates spouted off their usual line, "If abortion is outlawed, women will again be forced to go to back-alley butchers."

I'll let the lie about being "forced" to have illegal abortions slide. And we all know that illegal abortions were being done by the same doctors who opened legal mills before the ink on Roe v. Wade was dry. Let's assume just for the sake of argument that an illegal abortion is more dangerous than a legal abortion. Now, if pro-choicers are really as concerned about danger as they claim to be, then let me make a suggestion: When we've returned to moral sanity and put these Main Street butchers out of business, why don't pro-choicers help us to keep them from setting up shop in the back alleys?

Of course, no abortion advocate would agree to do that. This bogus concern for women being "forced to back-alley butchers" is only a cover-up for their real concerns: abortionists staying out of jail, and maintaining profits from legal mills.

Letter 277

Before Roe, if a doctor botched an abortion and killed a woman, he probably went to jail. Today, when one leaves his patient bleeding to death on the clinic floor, the fact that it was a legal procedure changes everything. Not for the woman, of course. She's still dead. But at least the one who killed her isn't in any trouble.

And this is supposed to save women's lives? Get real.

Letter 278

In yesterday's rally, abortion advocates spouted off their usual line that, "Before Roe v. Wade, 5,000 to 10,000 women died annually at the hands of back-alley butchers." To see how outrageous those numbers are, look at the total number of women who were dying at that time. Government statistics show that about 50,000 women of childbearing age died every year--from all causes. If the abortion fanatics aren't lying, then 20 percent of all the women of childbearing age dying in America before Roe were being killed during botched abortions. Surely there can't be anyone in the world stupid enough to believe that!

Obviously, these radical abortion advocates were lying, and continue to do so today. As much as these guys want people to believe that it was common for some poor girl to face some greasy old man with a coat-hanger who would abort her on a dirty mattress, their own information proves otherwise.

And while I agree that no woman should have to suffer such risks and indignities, I need to point out two things: legal abortion is no better, and it is pro-choicers, not pro-lifers, who submit women to such ordeals. Pro-lifers offer help raising the child or placing her for adoption. Pro-choicers offer a cannula or a coat hanger.

Some choice.

Letter 279

In yesterday's rally, abortion advocates claimed that, "Before Roe v. Wade, 5,000 to 10,000 women died annually at the hands of back-alley butchers." I have never understood the mentality of people who could look at the carnage of criminal abortion and say something as idiotic as, "Gee--abortion kills women. We should make this legal!" Is their any other dangerous activity that we should legalize to save lives? Hey, if legalizing a deadly activity makes it safer, we should legalize drunk driving! Think how many lives that could save!

When you substitute any other dangerous act for "abortion," you can clearly see how bogus it is to claim that making it legal and subsidizing it with tax dollars will save lives. Let's stop being stupid. The way to prevent abortion deaths is to prevent abortions, not to encourage them.

Letter 280

Speaking to the Senate on Thursday, an abortion enthusiast cried over "all those poor women who will die if we lose the right to safe, legal abortion."

The truth is, even before Roe, it was obvious that there is no such thing as a safe abortion--legal or not. Before Roe, many women died from legal "therapeutic" abortions--women who had been healthy before some quack decided an abortion would be "therapeutic."

Abortion enthusiasts had a choice. They could recognize that most women do not share their enthusiasm for abortion. Most women want to solve their problems, not face the abortionist's knife. Abortion proponents could have dropped their pet project and focused on helping women avoid abortion. They chose instead to stick with their passion: the one-size-fits-all solution of abortion. Their "damn the torpedoes" attitude began costing more and more women their health, their bodily integrity, and their lives.

When is the last time you saw a pro-choicer express any outrage over a woman bleeding to death on the floor of a filthy legal abortion clinic because the clinic director didn't want the bad press of an ambulance pulling up out front? The only women they care about are victims of illegal abortions. The victims of legal abortions are expendable for the cause.

Letter 281

In her speech to the Senate on Thursday, an abortion enthusiast cried crocodile tears over "all those poor women who will die if we lose the right to safe, legal abortion."

Earth to pro-choicers--women are dying right now.

I have never seen a pro-choicer shed a tear over a woman killed in a legal abortion. These women are dismissed as unimportant.

I have also never understood why abortion advocates are able to muster so much compassion for the imagined "poor women who will die if we lose the right to safe, legal abortion," while remaining indifferent to the real woman gasping out her last breath in a pool of blood on the bathroom floor of some filthy legal abortion mill. Where is the outrage over women dying from legal abortions?

Their families grieve, and pro-lifers fight for higher standards of care for abortion clinics. But pro-choicers look the other way, only coming to life long enough to fight these higher standards. In their feigned zeal to protect women who they think might someday die, they sacrifice flesh-and-blood women today.

I think pro-choicers have mixed-up priorities. Or maybe they've bought into the pro-choice mindset so long that there's no room for reality in their lives. But either way, women pay.

I say it's time women stopped dying from abortions once and for all.

Letter 282

In her speech to the Senate, an abortion supporter cried over "all those poor women who will die if we lose the right to safe, legal abortion."

The truth is that legal abortions (those done for "therapeutic" reasons) were already killing women long before Roe v. Wade unleashed unlimited abortion-on-demand. Today, women are bleeding to death on the floors of legal abortion mills.

The fact is, legalizing abortion didn't stop abortion deaths. It just made death available to more women at a lower cost, while making sure that abortionists didn't go to jail when they killed them. And with that we have arrived at the real motive for legalizing abortion: not to stop abortions from being botched, but to stop doctors from going to jail for botching them.

The only thing that's still not clear to me is how that profited women.

Letter 318

Yesterday, abortion enthusiasts treated the city to the spectacle of a funeral march for a woman they say died in 1968 from a botched illegal abortion.

They had no documentation to back their claim, but I will assume that the woman in question really did die from a botched criminal abortion almost thirty years ago. My question is: Where is their compassion for the woman today, gasping out her last breath in a pool of blood on the floor of some filthy legal abortion mill? The woman they say died in 1968 makes a nice symbol, but if there was any real concern for women's lives, those marchers would have remembered the hundreds of other women killed by abortion since it has been legalized. And they would be fighting to end abortion, not perpetuate it.