Abortion Procedure in America Misrepresented

Loui Itoh’s column, “Not a Time to Kill” (Mar. 1), carries significant misinformation and sadly perpetuates many of the myths about abortion in an effort to promote a particular moral agenda. Firstly, the term “partial birth abortion” is not a term used by the medical community; it is one used by anti-abortion activists to stir up emotion. Similarly, she defines a 20-week-old fetus as a “child” based on its childlike physical features. Again, the medical community disagrees, as do those who hold different philosophical and religious beliefs about the definitions of infanthood.

Although she admits that the procedure—officially called dilation and extraction (D&X)—is rare, she claims it accounts for 1 percent of all abortions. This is an incorrect statistic; D&X procedures account for only 0.17 percent of all abortions. Such procedures are not performed on healthy women whose fetuses would be able to survive indefinitely outside the mother, as Ms. Itoh claims. They are generally only done if there are serious mental or physical health problems related to the pregnancy, such as the fetus suffering from a condition that would render it unable to live outside the womb. And although the gestational age at which a fetus is able to survive outside the womb is considered to be 23-26 weeks, infants born before 32 weeks are at significant risk for long-term medical problems, including retinal damage, intestinal problems, and cerebral palsy.

Ms. Itoh also claims that scientific evidence shows 20 to 30-week-old fetuses are more sensitive to pain and lack mechanisms to dull the effects of pain. However, a recent review of the literature published in the Journal of the American Medical Association shows that the neural mechanisms needed to perceive pain are not formed until 28-30 weeks.

Most importantly, arguing about when life begins or whether or not a 20-week-old fetus is a “child” is unproductive. What our society needs is to understand the reasons why women feel they must need abortions and address those reasons by providing extensive education for all and enacting policies that provide financial support and social support for pregnant women and parents. We need to redirect the attention away from these rare but usually necessary procedures and onto issues impacting those who have already been born—for example, addressing the needs of 13 million children living in poverty. To do otherwise would truly be “morally repugnant.”