Letter 286

Yesterday on the news, a proponent of legal abortion described what she saw as the "alternative" to "safe, legal abortion." She went on to paint a picture of "seedy old men" demanding sex from desperate women "seeking" abortions.

How is that any different from what goes on now? Abortionists rape and molest women today in America's legal abortion clinics. The difference is that these perverts have more opportunity now than they did before Roe v. Wade, since there are so many more women having abortions. If proponents of legal abortion think this is an improvement over "the bad old days," you have to wonder whose side they are on.

Letter 327

A pro-choicer's editorial supporting unfettered abortion made the strange assertion that prior to Roe v. Wade, abortion laws were intended to protect women, not fetuses. She held that it would be "cruel irony" to put them back on the books, on the grounds that the supposed safety of abortion makes them no longer necessary.

Her argument is based on the fact that most early abortion laws focused on "quickening." She claims that this was a simple way to make the distinction between "safe" early abortion and more dangerous later abortions.

Then how does she explain the fact that as medicine grew more sophisticated, the "quickening" distinction was abolished?

Before modern technology such as ultrasound and sensitive pregnancy tests, the only sure symptom of a viable pregnancy was fetal movement. Since many patent medicines were advertised as "menstrual regulators," it might be assumed that the law sought to avoid punishing somebody who did not know that there was indeed a living child involved. After quickening, there could be no doubt.

As medical technology became more advanced, the distinction of "quickening" was abolished, and abortions became illegal at any point during pregnancy. Why, if abortion was previously seen as safe in early pregnancy, would knowledge of fetal development lead doctors to eliminate early abortions as well as later ones? Obviously, the only reason would be to protect the baby.

Although our grandparents might not have realized that even early abortion kills a baby, we know it now. To use past ignorance to promote current evil is despicable.

Letter 328

In her June 4 letter, an abortion fanatic claimed that pre-Roe abortion laws were meant to protect women, not babies, and therefore they should never be reinstated.

As evidence, she quotes a book citing an 1821 Connecticut law specifically criminalizing abortion by "deadly poison." Her argument was that since it didn't criminalize causing abortions with instruments, it was meant only to protect women.

She conveniently leaves out two points.

First, the law criminalized abortion by "deadly poison" after quickening. If the law was meant to protect the woman, why would it be okay to endanger her with a deadly poison early in pregnancy, when you could not be sure there was a viable baby? Wouldn't the law have prohibited all abortions by "deadly poison?"

Second, common law already prohibited post-quickening abortions using instruments. The 1821 law didn't need to criminalize them, since they were already illegal.

Either this abortion fanatic doesn't have her facts straight, or she is deliberately trying to mislead the readers of this paper. Either way, she needs to stand corrected. Early abortion laws were instituted to protect fetal life as early as life could be recognized. Should we do any less today?

Letter 329

A pro-choice extremist's op-ed piece yesterday claimed that pre-Roe anti-abortion laws were just attempts by the male-dominated medical establishment to drive non-doctors out of business.

Her argument doesn't stand up to logical scrutiny.

As evidence, consider a strong anti-abortion law established by the medical community in New York in 1846. The law made it a crime for anyone--doctor or not--to perform abortions, or even to "advise" women on how to perform or obtain abortions.

Now, if their motive was to protect their own turf, wouldn't they have limited abortions to doctors, or at least insisted that they be performed in hospitals, where only doctors would be free to practice?

This pro-choice extremist is grasping at straws. She knows that the real reason the medical establishment sought to eliminate the practice of abortion is that they recognized it as the killing of children, and a dangerous procedure for the women involved.

Letter 310

Yesterday's coverage of the "shortage" of "abortion providers" certainly shows a change of attitude in the medical profession.

Back when doctors carried their instruments in little black bags and still made house calls, the American Medical Association had quite a different attitude toward abortion than we're seeing today. Far from whining about a "shortage" of abortionists, the AMA said of them: "The members of the profession should shrink with horror from all interaction with them professionally or otherwise; these men should be marked as Cain was marked: They should be made the outcasts of society. It becomes the duty of every physician in the United States to resort to every honorable and legal means in his power to crush out from among us this pest of society."

Now all of a sudden we're complaining of a "shortage?" Why not just cry that there aren't enough rats infesting the tenements of Harlem?

Recruiting abortionists is like leaving food out for cockroaches.

Letter 311

Yesterday's coverage of the "shortage" of "abortion providers" certainly shows a change of attitude in the medical profession.

The American Medical Association had a much different attitude about abortionists in 1871--back when your doctor knew your name and who your mother was, and would let you pay him in potatoes or chickens if you didn't have any money. The old-time doctors, making house calls with their black bags in hand, called abortionists "false brethren," "educated assassins," "modern Herods," "corrupt souls," and "monsters of iniquity."

Nowadays, when you can't get an appointment unless you're dying, you spend more time filling out insurance forms than getting medical care, and your doctor has to read your chart to remember who you are, abortionists are suddenly important members of the medical community. It's interesting that in this age of depersonalized medicine, the profession complains that we aren't educating enough assassins.

Think about it.

Letter 312

In yesterday's coverage of the declining number of abortionists in America, you covered many reasons abortionists quit. But you left out one reason.

Abortionist Anthony Levantino's daughter, Heather, was struck by a car and killed when she was only three years old.

"Let me tell you something," Levantino said. "When you lose a child, your child, life is very different. Everything changes...It's not an embryology course anymore; it's not just a couple of hundred dollars. It's the real thing. It's your child you buried. The old discomforts came back in spades. I couldn't even think about a D&E abortion anymore, no way. Then you start to realize, this is somebody's child. I lost my child--someone who was very precious to us. And now I'm taking somebody's child, and I'm tearing them right out of their womb. I'm killing somebody's child. That's what it took to get me to change...I began to feel like a paid assassin. That's exactly what I was...It got to a point that it just wasn't worth it to me anymore. The money wasn't worth it...So I quit."

Some abortionists quit because they're cowards, afraid of the grandmas and grandpas sitting in front of the abortion mill day after day. But some quit, like Tony Levantino, because they just can't make themselves keep killing babies for money any more.

It's the reason for quitting that nobody ever talks about. I would hope it is the most common.

Letter 313

In yesterday's coverage of the declining number of abortionists in America, you covered many reasons abortionists quit. But you left out one reason: abortion itself.

David Brewer described the incident that led him to abandon abortion. He was assisting in a hysterotomy abortion, in which the fetus is removed through an abdominal incision:

"I remember seeing the baby move underneath the sack of membranes as the cesarean incision was made...The thought came to me, ‘My God, that's a person.'...And when he broke the water, it was like I had a pain in my heart, just like when I saw that first suction abortion...I just stood there, and the reality of what was going on finally began to seep into my calloused brain and heart. They took that little baby that was making little sounds and moving and kicking, and set it on a table in a cold, stainless steel bowl. And every time I would look over..., I would see that little person kicking and moving in that bowl...I can remember going over and looking at that baby when we were done with the surgery and the baby was still alive. You could see the chest was moving and the heart was beating, and the baby would try and take a little breath like that, and it really hurt inside, and it began to educate me as to what abortion really was."

Maybe this is the best reason of all for quitting.