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Lives at Stake
RECEIVED Thu., July 18, 2013
Dear Editor,
A number of errors occurred in Michael King's commentary, "Point Austin: United Defense of the Fetus," [News, July 19].
For example, most people are unaware that when the Supreme Court made its ruling in Roe v. Wade and the companion case, Doe v. Bolton, the life-related laws in all 50 states were wiped out by the high court, leaving the United States with one of the most radical abortion policies in the world. The U.S. is among the four most extreme nations in the world on abortion, standing with China, North Korea, and Canada alone, out of 195 nations, allowing abortions through all nine months, for any reason at all, and sometimes with taxpayer subsidies.
Should Roe v. Wade be overturned because it is bad law (as many pro-abortion legal minds have indicated, including Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg), abortion would not become "illegal" as King said – it would return to the states where legislators would pass laws in line with the views of their constituents.
King's description of the laws were inaccurate as well. The Texas legislation is life-saving. In the trial of Kermit Gosnell, who operated a "house of horrors" abortion clinic where newly born infants were killed following botched abortions, the grand jury found that the narrow hallways of the old building were a factor in a woman's death because emergency personnel could not get to her in time, nor get her out. Clinic regulations save lives.
So does limiting abortion after five months of pregnancy. Empirical data shows that a woman seeking an abortion at 20 weeks is 35 times more likely to die from abortion than she was in the first trimester. At 21 weeks or more, she is 91 times more likely to die from abortion than she was in the first trimester.
It's time for an accurate discussion of life-related laws because King is right on one thing – women's lives are at stake.
A number of errors occurred in Michael King's commentary, "Point Austin: United Defense of the Fetus," [News, July 19].
For example, most people are unaware that when the Supreme Court made its ruling in Roe v. Wade and the companion case, Doe v. Bolton, the life-related laws in all 50 states were wiped out by the high court, leaving the United States with one of the most radical abortion policies in the world. The U.S. is among the four most extreme nations in the world on abortion, standing with China, North Korea, and Canada alone, out of 195 nations, allowing abortions through all nine months, for any reason at all, and sometimes with taxpayer subsidies.
Should Roe v. Wade be overturned because it is bad law (as many pro-abortion legal minds have indicated, including Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg), abortion would not become "illegal" as King said – it would return to the states where legislators would pass laws in line with the views of their constituents.
King's description of the laws were inaccurate as well. The Texas legislation is life-saving. In the trial of Kermit Gosnell, who operated a "house of horrors" abortion clinic where newly born infants were killed following botched abortions, the grand jury found that the narrow hallways of the old building were a factor in a woman's death because emergency personnel could not get to her in time, nor get her out. Clinic regulations save lives.
So does limiting abortion after five months of pregnancy. Empirical data shows that a woman seeking an abortion at 20 weeks is 35 times more likely to die from abortion than she was in the first trimester. At 21 weeks or more, she is 91 times more likely to die from abortion than she was in the first trimester.
It's time for an accurate discussion of life-related laws because King is right on one thing – women's lives are at stake.
Kristi Hamrick
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