LETTERS: 25TH ANNIVERSARY OF ABORTION RULING

To the editor:

Jan. 22 marks the 25th anniversary of the tragic Supreme Court decisions, Roe vs. Wade and Doe vs. Bolton, legalizing abortion. Since then, no boy or girl has been safe from the scissors, scalpels, suction machines or salt solutions used to dismember or poison them.

At the very least, 35 million unborn children have been destroyed in the United States alone. The death toll continues to rise by about 4,000 every day. The Roe decision allowed the mother to abort her child for any reason before the end of the sixth month of pregnancy and or "health reasons" at any point in the last three months. No provisions protected the unborn child.

The court in Doe vs. Bolton made it clear that through the ninth month any health concern encompassing physical, emotional, psychological, familial and a woman's age relevant to the well-being of the patient could outweigh the unborn child's most basic right: the right to life. In 1973, the medical knowledge was such that the humanity of the unborn child could not be seriously questioned. But the advances which have taken place since then are breathtaking. Technology now proves that brain waves can be detected within 41 days of conception.

Our Supreme Court accepts the lack of brain waves as a definition of death. Thus, shouldn't the detection of brain waves logically be a definition of the beginning of life? It is now possible to treat fetal anomalies such as urinary-tract defects, diaphragmatic hernia and spina bifida in the womb, to name just a few.

Taylor Dahley, an 18-month-old child, was reported in good health after being diagnosed two years earlier with a rare and fatal immunodeficiency condition. His parents allowed him to have a bone-marrow transplant in vitro.

In recent years, there have been increasing numbers of cases in which mothers are being prosecuted for damaging their fetuses through the abuse of alcohol and drugs. In 1995, a judge in Wisconsin actually gave a name to a fetus and ordered it detained at a local hospital, meaning the mother had to be detained as well. The rights of the unborn child were not only protected, but prevailed.

In another highly publicized dispute, a woman was charged with attempted homicide for trying to drink her fetus to death. When she was brought to the hospital with a toxic blood alcohol level, she was ordered hospitalized until she sobered up. Unfortunately, the child was born with fetal alcohol syndrome and is now in foster care.

In 1995, Congress voted overwhelmingly to ban partial-birth abortions in which the child is partially vaginally delivered and then killed by sucking it brains out and collapsing the head before completing the delivery. Thousands of these infanticides are performed in the United States each year. Many are done in mid-pregnancy during the fifth and sixth months. Most of them are elective abortions.

This heinous procedure is medically and morally indefensible. Even member of Congress who traditionally consider themselves pro-choice supported the ban, because the procedure ethically crossed the line. Still, there are those who contend that there are legitimate reasons for this procedure. Dr. Martin Haskell, who has performed more than 1,000 such procedures, stated that 80 percent of the partial-birth abortions are performed between 20 and 24 weeks and are "purely elective." Prenatal-care experts such as Dr. Pamela Smith, director of medical education in the department of obstetrics and gynecology at Mt. Sinai Hospital in Chicago, insist that "there are absolutely no situations encountered in this country which require a partially delivered human fetus to be destroyed to preserve the life or health of the mother." Actually, the opposite is true, because the procedure requires three days of forceful dilation of the cervix. This risks damaging the mother's reproductive system. Another documented complication is uterine rupture. As medical technology continues to improve and lifesaving operations are performed on fetuses and premature babies who survive, the hypocrisy if glaring.

CHRISTINE E. STEPHENS

Cape Girardeau