I respond to Vickie Fischer's Jan. 26 letter on legal abortion.
She states that when abortion was illegal, women had to go to dark, dirty places to have abortions, and the maternal death rate was high. She also implies that legal abortion does not kill women.
First, although there certainly were, and are, dark dirty places where illegal abortions are performed, the majority of illegal abortions before 1973 were performed by doctors. They were more back-door-to-the-office than back
alley. Also, although deaths did occur, one of the founders of National Abortion Rights Action League, Dr. Bernard Nathanson, now admits that the maternal death figures were greatly, and intentionally, inflated.
Death and physical harm still can result from legal abortions. Perforation of the uterus, infection, sterilization, increased tendencies for tubal pregnancy and miscarriage - these are all possible complications from legal abortion. Any surgery carries a risk. Abortion, legal or illegal, is not completely safe.
And there are always deaths from abortion. The death rate has risen with legal abortion - almost two million a year. A child always dies, sometimes the mother and child, whether the abortion is legal or illegal.
I believe in freedom of choice. But this freedom has its limits. I do not have the freedom of choice to break into a house and steal a television. I do not have the freedom of choice to kill someone. I do not have the freedom of choice to abuse my own or any one else's children.
There are alternatives to abortion, and many pro-life agencies will go to great lengths to help a woman find the alternative right for her. Abortion is not merely an issue of freedom of choice. It's an issue of life and death.
Monica Sohler
Philadelphia.
