To the Editor:
Re “Trading Women’s Rights for Political Power,” by Kate Michelman and Frances Kissling (Op-Ed, Nov. 12):
It’s probably true that the Democrats in Congress are trading off “pro-choice” support to advance health insurance legislation. But we should distinguish between a woman’s right to terminate her pregnancy and the government’s obligation to help finance that choice.
If abortion rights do indeed derive from a more general right to privacy, the government has no more business paying for an abortion than prohibiting it.
Gary Abramson
Goshen, N.Y., Nov. 12, 2009
To the Editor:
While I agree with Kate Michelman and Frances Kissling that the decision by the Democratic Party to sacrifice women’s reproductive rights in the name of enacting health care reform was wrong, I am equally dismayed by the shocking facts of abortion.
Roughly half of all pregnancies in the United States today are unplanned, and of those, about 40 percent are aborted. In 2001, the most recent year for which reliable statistics exist, that amounted to 3.1 million unplanned pregnancies and 1.3 million abortions, representing 20 percent of all pregnancies.
Until those numbers are reduced to something more palatable to mainstream Americans like me, we will remain far less incensed about threats to reproductive rights than the authors imply. I humbly suggest that pro-choice groups put more effort into passing legislation designed to reduce the rate of unplanned pregnancies, thereby reducing the number of abortions. Otherwise, I believe (and fear) that they will find themselves on the losing end of this battle.
Josh Miner
La Crosse, Wis., Nov. 12, 2009
Note from KBJ: The second letter writer is troubled by the number of abortions being performed. Imagine someone being troubled not by slavery, but by the number of slaves. Imagine someone being troubled not by rape, but by the number of rapes.
Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D. 