Many old truths about abortion deserve to be heard again

By M.D. Harmon
Press Herald
Jan. 21, 2007

The 34th anniversary of Roe v. Wade is coming up Monday, and after writing about abortion for years, it's a bit of a challenge to say something original about it this year.

So let's say a few old things that, because they are so well- established, seldom get mentioned. Here is what isn't news about abortion, as culled from www.secondlookproject.org, a Web site of the Pro-Life Secretariat of the U.S. Council of Catholic Bishops:

Most Americans tell pollsters - and have for years - that they approve of outlawing most abortions.

A 2005 Harris Interactive Poll, tracking a large amount of previous polling, reported that 72 percent of respondents said abortion should be illegal in the second three months of pregnancy, and 86 percent said abortion should be illegal in the last three months of pregnancy. Even support for abortion in the first three months is open to question. In a 2004 Zogby International poll, 61 percent of Americans said abortion should not be permitted after the fetal heartbeat has begun.

This occurs in the first month of pregnancy, and 77 percent of all abortions take place after it. Why do abortion proponents say most Americans favor it? For two reasons:

First, these same surveys show that most people wrongly think that abortion is only legal for the first three months of pregnancy. Actually, it is legal not only for the entire nine months, but can be performed when all of a baby's body is fully extracted from its mother's womb except for its head (as in a partial-birth abortion).

Second, a majority does favor abortions in the so-called "hard cases" of rape, incest, fetal deformation or a threat to the mother's life.

Thus, when pollsters ask the blunt question, "Should Roe v. Wade be overturned?" a bare majority - 52 percent in the Harris poll, for example - says "no" because, as the surveys themselves reveal, people don't know that fully developed babies can be aborted for any reason and don't want the "hard-case" exceptions outlawed.

n What few people seem to realize is that those exceptions are very rare. According to an Alan Guttmacher Institute survey, women cite them as the main reason for having an abortion in only a very small percentage of cases:

"Rape or incest" - 1 percent;

"Woman has health problem" (physical or mental) - 3 percent;

"Fetus has possible health problem" - 3 percent.

For all other abortions, the main reasons cited are:

"Unready for responsibility" - 21 percent;

"Can't afford baby now" - 21 percent;

"Concerned about how having a baby could change her life"- 16 percent;

"Has problems with relationship or wants to avoid single parenthood" - 12 percent;

"Is not mature enough, or is too young to have a child" - 11 percent; and "Has all the children she wanted, or has all grown-up children" - 8 percent.

All others - 4 percent.

It's quite true that having a baby can be a burden on a single parent, put a strain on a family's finances or be difficult to handle when people have a large family or one where the children are already grown.

But, with 2 million couples a year seeking to adopt a child, those reasons provide far better cause to give a child up to a loving family than to kill it.

Abortion is supposedly "the premier women's issue." Yet, a national survey of women published by the Center for Gender Equality in 2003 said, "Only 30 percent think abortion should be generally available."

In fact, 17 percent of women said abortion should never be permitted and 34 percent said abortion should be permitted only in cases of rape, incest, and to save the mother's life. When asked to rank 12 issues in order of importance for the women's movement, women ranked "keeping abortion legal" next to last.

So, why don't our laws conform to our views? Partly because of the intensity of those who hold that the "right" to an abortion is the premier thing that makes women "equal" to men. Their ferocity intimidates some officials who would otherwise vote their opposition.

But it also has to do with the fact that every time Americans have tried to alter the law, the attempts founder at the same spot - the unyielding opinions of a handful of willful jurists.

The cost has been enormous - 45 million dead babies - and now is being imposed on the smallest and most helpless humans of all, those in the embryonic stage of life.

We're so wedded to the Culture of Death that we will even accept it when it offers to heal some of us by killing others.

I have no idea how long it will take to restore a culture that protects the weakest among us.

I only hope that when it's all over, we can still be forgiven.

M.D. Harmon is an editorial page writer and editor. He can be contacted at 791-6482 or at:

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