Safe, Legal and Rare

In response to Mary Honrud’s Part III of Are They Willing from the November 11, 2015 Courier.

Safe, legal, and rare. This is what was promised to the American people that abortions would be upon legalization. Of the three, legal is the only one to be a fact.

Safe. This depends on your definition of safe, which I guess is totally subjective. (It’s confusing living in a time when words are fluid and not definable.) In 2010, only 10 women died from complications. Omelettes … eggs. 421 women from 1973 to 2010. Omelettes eggs. Worldwide, 47,000 women die each year from complications, but are we our sister’s keeper? Hardly when the UN often forces a country to have this “service” available before it offers its “help.”

 Rare. I don’t think even in a definition fluid society we would dare to say abortion is rare. Two thousand nine hundred per day if you remember my last letter. A little more than the population of Montana each year. 

Your article really disturbed me. It seems you advocate for free access to abortion. “So the woman seeking to end her pregnancy faces the expense of traveling to the clinic as well as the expense of the procedure” suggests that there should be a “clinic” (where you normally go to preserve life) in every town. Or public assistance to get these women there. Enough of my tax dollars go to Planned Parenthood, thank you very much, and I will not be content until zero does!

America is a great country, where we have the opportunity to live free. No matter how free we live we must be accountable for our actions. Rights equals responsibilities! Your reasons listed for women to get an abortion seems to be backed by numbers. Operation Rescue has abortions as: 21 percent - inadequate finances; 21 percent - not ready for the responsibility; 16 percent - woman’s life would be changed too much; 12 percent - problems with relationship, unmarried; 11 percent - too young and immature; eight percent - children are grown-she has all she wants; three percent - baby has possible health problems; less than one percent - pregnancy caused by rape/incest; four percent - other. You doubt that 89 percent of abortions aren’t a form of birth control? And we, as Americans, have condoned this “living” as a sign of the times, a free loving society, a woman’s “choice”. Eighty-nine percent of women who have abortions made a decision before getting pregnant.

The argument that to make abortion illegal would lead to more unwanted children is total myth. If there were no “solutions” to unwanted pregnancies other than abortion I think lifestyle choices would change. This is the hook up culture, the free love crowd, the “it’s my body” people saying, “I’m in charge” that leads to 89 percent of abortions. That would be 2581 a day, FYI.

I know some would be happy if abortions were limited to rape or incest. Those are both heinous crimes. Indefensible crimes! But to limit abortions to rape or incest would only increase the reported rape cases in America without increasing the crime. We would trivialize a horrendous aspect of human nature to achieve a goal, much like we see in the political world with racism. With rape cases skyrocketing to ensure access to abortions, police would be unable to investigate actual cases. “Life is messy,” correct, but we make our own mess in most cases.

We are lucky to be alive in America today. We enjoy freedoms to such an extent 10-15 million people, numbers vary by source, have illegally entered our country to share in our blessings. It is a shame that we cannot find room in our hearts or our country for 1.2 million future Americans each year to share in that same blessing, life. We definitely are not the same country Thomas Jefferson envisioned when he wrote, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Chris Pippin,

Saco