Dear Editor:

The Sunday article which interviewed local Planned Parenthood officials and Dr. Dan Chester on the "morning after" pills was filled with opinionated misrepresentations by those interviewed. The article needs to be balanced by the following: many qualified professionals would characterize this as abortion, medically as well as ethically.

Dr. Chester misrepresents what the process does, claiming that the scientific community agrees the treatment is not abortion. He is using semantics to conceal a great deal of ethical disagreement among medical professionals. Doctors are no less divided on the issue scientifically than our society is ethically.

In this context, the Herald should not have referred readers to Planned Parenthood for more information. This organization is highly politicized. Readers should know that there are legitimate disagreements on the subject and they can also get information from crisis pregnancy centers, their doctors, or many churches.

Try asking Planned Parenthood why they defend abortions of babies four months before birth, or one month, or less. Medical workers are saving more and more babies born four months premature. Nonetheless, every year thousands of abortions are performed in the last four months of gestation.

The same scientific community has brought the proliferation of evidence regarding the development of babies before birth. Medical schools are producing fewer doctors willing to do abortions because these students have seen babies in the womb through ultrasound and other means. Even Naomi Wolf, a feminist writer, has acknowledged the need to admit "that the death of a fetus is a real death."

Planned Parenthood has been before our local school board defending the concept of circumventing parents to facilitate sexual activity by minors. When these minors become pregnant, their recommended solution is abortion. Truth in advertising would dictate that they change their name to Unplanned Unparenthood. Planned Parenthood is telling the Valley, "Some things you can undo." Is it any wonder that we have more and more parents that "undo" it after delivering a baby?

(printed in The Brownsville Herald 5 March 2000)

© 2000, 2003 by Wm. Robert Johnston.
Last modified 8 March 2003.
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