Abortion

ABORTION fights crime. Now there's a statement about which the pro-life and choice people can finally unite - in their mutual disagreement. The pro-life folks won't like it because they'll see it as a justification for abortion, and the choice folks won't like it because they'll say it singles out, and offers a values statement, about those who abort. Yet it's a very reasoned conclusion reached in a hot new book by a brilliant professor. I'd love it to provoke some intelligent discussion about abortion and parenting, but I'm predicting that policymakers will run for the hills instead.

In the continuing battle over reproductive rights, pro-choice and anti- abortion forces in Delaware County said they are gearing up for new campaigns after the Supreme Court ruling on Monday that opened the door for states to restrict women's access to abortion. And both sides said they plan to focus their efforts on lobbying Pennsylvania legislators. Kathy Coll, president of the Delaware County Pro-Life Coalition, said, "Our job is just beginning. " Coll is optimistic that Pennsylvania will follow Missouri's lead and impose greater restrictions on abortion "because Pennsylvania has a very pro-life legislature.

THE DEC. 9 op-ed by Dayle Steinberg, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania, criticized those who are pro-life as "working aggressively to eliminate all reproductive services from health-care reform. " As a woman and an American, I'm offended by Ms. Steinberg's presumption that her idea of reform is the desire of all women. The truth is, countless women, and particularly those in the Catholic Church, fully support genuine health-care reform that is equitable, affordable, available to all, and which offers true health care.

RE: Warren M. Hern's op-ed ("Am I a partial-birth abortion outlaw?" Oct. 28): Reading the words, "I closed the forceps, crushing the skull of the fetus, and withdrew the forceps. The fetus, now dead, slid out more or less intact" - and the nonchalant manner in which these words were written - sent chills down my spine. The last line describing Hern as a physician has to be the biggest oxymoron of all time. Gia M. Vent, Springfield I don't usually comment on things like this, but in Brian Diehl's Nov. 4 letter "Abortion definition," he said: "The term 'partial birth' means they pull the baby's feet out of the womb with his head still in it and then put a hole in the baby's head so they can suck the brains out and kill him. I hope that clears it up. " I think Mr. Diehl should learn a bit more about the birth process.

If life were fair, David R. Boldt would be pregnant and trying to get an abortion after the Supreme Court, as expected, strikes down Roe v. Wade and upholds Pennsylvania's onerous restrictions on abortion. That would be a just fate for someone who believes, as Boldt wrote on the Commentary Page on March 22, that these restrictions "wouldn't stop anyone from getting an abortion who has made a considered decision to have one. " Let's just say Boldt were poor, living in Emporium, Cameron County, Pennsylvania with three young children and a dysfunctional marriage.

A bitterly protested abortion on a comatose Long Island woman was begun last night after New York's highest tribunal and the U.S. Supreme Court refused to stop it. In a final appeal by anti-abortion activists, Justice Thurgood Marshall, who is responsible for New York State cases, was asked late last night in Washington to delay the abortion on Nancy Klein after the state Court of Appeals earlier declined to intervene. Marshall, without comment, rejected a motion to stay the proceeding, according to Anthony D'Uria, counsel to North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset.

For Irene Moeller of Cheltenham Township, the moment of truth came almost two decades ago. She was 39 and pregnant for the first time. "We wanted a baby so very much. We were so happy," she recalled. But because of potential medical complications associated with a pregnancy at that age, Moeller's doctor asked the couple to consider the possibility of an abortion. "We told him, no, absolutely not. And here's my beautiful daughter," she said, pointing to a color photograph of 18-year-old, sandy- haired Maria.

RE MICHAEL Smerconish's column about Pat Toomey and his abortion stand: I must disagree with my great friend Mike Smerconish over the Specter vs. Toomey abortion debate. Ask Pat (and you should), and he'll explain that his evolution from casual opinion to strong pro-life advocacy came over time. Remarkably, that's also the American story, changed from 70 percent pro-choice to 70 percent pro-life in two decades. Changing opinions can be opportunistic or genuine. When a NARAL executive found I had no serious abortion opinion, she challenged me to take a principled stand one way or the other.

ANKARA, Turkey - Thousands of demonstrators on Sunday staged the largest protest yet against plans by Turkey's Islamic-rooted government to curb abortion, which critics say will amount to a virtual ban. Around 3,000 women - their ages ranging from 20 to 60 years old - gathered at a square in Istanbul's Kadikoy district. Some carried banners that read "my body, my choice" and shouted antigovernment slogans. Many of the women were accompanied by husbands and boyfriends.

THROUGHOUT history men have been given many rights. For example, at one point men were permitted to beat their wives without legal or social consequences. In the 1950s and 1960s white men would kill African-Americans and would be branded as patriots. This country's founding fathers owned slaves, raped and beat women, and killed men because of their skin color. Based on these truths I find it a bit arrogant for a select group of men in Washington to tell women what they can and can not do with their bodies.