Dear Editor,
I would like to clear up a few misconceptions about abortion that were present in Marianne Steffey’s article “Pro-choice disregards health through partial-birth abortions.”
According to the Centers for Disease Control, 55 percent of legal abortions occur within the first eight weeks of gestation, and 88 percent are performed within the first 12 weeks.
That leaves a mere 1.4 percent that occur after 20 weeks, what most would consider a “partial birth” abortion.
This extremely rare type of abortion is almost always performed in a situation in which the mother cannot carry the fetus to term without risking her own life.
“Partial birth” is an exaggerated political term used by anti-abortion activists that has no medical meaning. A more accurate name for this type of abortion is “late term,” as a fetus cannot be partially born.
Women need late-term abortions for many reasons, such as diagnosis of a disease during pregnancy that requires medication that is severely harmful to a fetus or certain types of infections that threaten both the health of the mother and fetus.
Additionally, a large percentage of women do not know that they are pregnant until the later stages.
How is this possible?
Some examples are: women who do not menstruate or do so irregularly, denial of the pregnancy as a result of rape or incest, repeated misdiagnosis of a pregnancy by doctors and so on.
As far as the safety of an abortion, presently the death rate from abortion at all stages of gestation is 0.6 per 100,000 procedures.
The statement that “a woman feeling guilt for her actions and not being able to bear the guilt leading to emotional breakdowns and depression” is simply not true.
The American Psychological Association convened a panel of psychologists with extensive experience in this field to review these so called claims made by anti-abortionists.
They reported that the studies with the most scientifically rigorous research designs consistently found no trace of “post-abortion syndrome.”
Furthermore, no such syndrome is scientifically or medically recognized.
Remarkably, although first-trimester abortion does not affect most women adversely, and nearly all women assimilate the abortion experience by six months to one year after the procedure.
One study indicates that 95 percent of birth mothers report grief after they have signed their consent to adoption, and two-thirds continued to experience these feelings five to 15 years after relinquishment.
Women should not be forced by the government to carry a baby they do not want and are not ready for, or be expected to carry it for nine months and hand it over to total strangers.
Abortion is never an easy choice, but it must be an option for all women.
To be pro-choice requires the support of a woman’s right to choose what is best for her, whether you agree with her choice or not.
Misty Adams

Author