To the editor:

Barbara Duke’s Jan. 30 letter to the editor attempts to justify the need for legalized abortion in the traditional pro-abortion way … make up numbers to justify your argument. The letter makes the absurd claim, without reference, that 1.2 million illegal abortions were performed annually before Roe v. Wade.

Dr. Bernard Nathanson, founder of the National Abortion Rights Activist league and once known as “The Abortion King” in New York, has the following to say regarding such numbers, “I confess that I knew the figures were totally false … But in the ‘morality’ of our revolution, it was a useful figure, widely accepted, so why go out of our way to correct it with honest statistics?” CDC and other scientific data now estimate that at most 150,000 illegal abortions took place annually before Roe v. Wade (see www.hli.org).

The letter also makes that statement that “Women will take extreme measures and risk their lives to give birth. They will do the same to terminate an unhealthful pregnancy.” First, abortion begins with a perfectly healthy mother and child and results in the death of at least one of the patients. Pregnancy is almost never unhealthy; abortion is always disastrous to the health of all those involved. Secondly, the statement implies that making abortion illegal would punish women who “risk their lives” in time of crisis. People certainly will risk their lives in time of crisis, but making abortion illegal seeks to punish not these women, but the so-called doctors who take advantage of them and offer murder as a solution while stealing their money and their dignity.

The letter makes the bold claim that “Abortion deaths are almost completely preventable,” and this is almost true. ALL abortion deaths, especially the deaths of millions of innocent children, are completely preventable. Making abortion illegal will not single-handedly make this a reality, but it is a necessary step in the right direction.

Shawn P. Tunink,

Lawrence