The False Sense of 'Choice' in Abortion Clinics

To the editors:

There is more than one way to look at National Abortion Providers' Day. While Meredith B. Osborn exhorts us to safeguard abortion (Op-Ed, March 10), Priests for Life used the day to give special impetus to their ministry with abortionists. National Director Fr. Frank Pavone commented, "We respect [abortionists'] lives as much as we respect the lives of unborn children. Yet it is precisely because of our respect for them that we listen carefully to the pain and anger they have because of abortion. Pavone quoted abortionist David Zbaraz who said abortion is "a nasty, dirty, yucky thing and I always come home angry." A "pro-life" position means caring about all human life, including the lives of abortionists.

Osborn speaks of the "loose-cannon and irresponsible rhetoric" of those opposed to abortions, but rehashes the popular myth that partial-birth abortions are "rarely performed and then often to save a woman's life." 1997 figures from the National Coalition of Abortion Providers show 3,000 to 5,000 partial-birth abortions annually. Moreover, the American Medical Association has stated that the procedure is never necessary to save the mother's life.

Another of Osborn's pseudo-arguments is the picture of a harsh pre-Roe world where back-alley abortions killed thousands each year. This claim is not simply a misrepresentation, but a consciously fabricated and propagated lie. Dr. Bernard Nathanson, co-founder of National Abortion Rights Activist League, who now opposes abortion, stated, "We spoke of 5,000 to 10,000 deaths a year [from back-alley abortions]. I confess that I knew the figures were totally false...It was a useful figure, widely accepted, so why go out of our way to correct it with honest statistics." Actually, in 1973 45 deaths resulted from illegal abortions.

Abortion clinics are hardly

"pro-choice" places. Counselors do not fully inform women about other options, and sometimes even lie to them. A former El Paso clinic manager stated, "If a woman we were counseling expressed doubts about having an abortion, we would say whatever was necessary to persuade her to abort immediately." Clinic workers are instructed not to allow women to view the ultrasound, because seeing the unborn child will discourage the woman from having an abortion.