Though I do respect Jack Shepler's right to his opinion in "Morethan two sides can be found in abortion issue," (Thursday, Oct. 21)I'm a bit disappointed in his lack of facts to back it up. Jack'sstatement that the child could not live outside the mother is onlytrue up to the fifth month, after which time a baby would have a50% chance of living on its own. Before I go any further, Jack usedthe term "mother," mothers have children, not inanimate objects orgrowths. To say it is ultimately a part of the mother is incorrect.A being with separate blood, skin and brain can hardly beconsidered just an extension of another person. By week eight, ababy has their own fingerprints, something highly individual toeach human being. By week 13, the sex is identifiable, and by thefourth month, the baby's heart is pumping about six gallons oftheir own blood every day.
Jack asked what a mother should do if she knew she couldn'tprovide for the child. Well, the National Committee for Adoptionhas stated that approximately 2 million couples in America arewaiting to adopt while only about 50,000 babies are put up foradoption each year. As for the remarks concerning why women haveabortions, Jack seems to have little grasp on the actualstatistics. Statistically, only about one in 1,000 women willbecome pregnant as a result of rape because it puts so much stresson the body. Only 1 percent of abortions are for rape or incest, 1percent because of fetal abnormalities and 3 percent because of themother's health problems. The remaining 95 percent of abortions arefor "birth control." A 1994 statistic from the U.S. Health andHuman Service Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showedthat four out of every five abortions were obtained by women 20years of age and older. As for his hanger comment, a year beforeRoe v. Wade, 39 women died from abortion complications. 21 deathswere the result of "legal abortion" in 1977, five years after itslegalization.
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