Letters to the Editor

“Facts” on abortion lacking

John Lo (letter to the editor, March 27th,) finds himself wanting facts on abortion.

Allow me to offer these that he may ponder: The point of the article that he finds “frivolous” is explicitly about the difficulties that lack of access to affordable birth control and the extreme hardships unplanned pregnancies impose on low-income women, and not, as he so vaguely suggests, “abortion’s influence on poverty and other health issues.”

The nearly 10-year old study he references is from a journal published in Finland, and an Internet search using the information provided in his letter results in a list of Web sites with distinctly conservative opinions on the topic of abortion.

Thus, his citation is simply that — a distinctly conservative expression of opinion rather than the statistically significant results he purports to quote. Furthermore, even a cursory examination of his ‘findings’ from other hazily referenced studies reveal them to be irrelevant to the point of absurdity.

Finally, since he is so concerned about the lives of women relative to their childbearing status and the “ridiculousness” of abortion, I trust that he fully supports sex and birth control education (other than abstinence-only programs) and free access to family planning facilities.

If not, then only when Mr. Lo finds himself in a position similar to pregnant, low-income women may he contribute with any credibility to the debate as to what “the real issue” is.

— Kimberly Lenz
Graduate Student, Communicative Disorders and Deaf Studies

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