Photographs of Aborted Babies

In response to “End Abortion by Showing Its Victims,” by Patrick Riley, Column Right, Aug. 20:

Amazingly enough, I agree with Riley about showing photos of the results of abortions. The public’s ambivalence would indeed vanish but not because of the reasons he thinks. Everyone would see that a photo of the aborted material looks like a tiny ink blot.

A few figures, once again, to set the record straight. Of the 1.5 million abortions performed annually, 91% are performed in the first 12 weeks. That is 1,365,000 are performed in the first trimester; 50% of those are done within the first eight weeks. A zygote that size (it’s not even a fetus) is about the size of my index fingernail. The 12-week fetus is about the size of the first joint of my index finger and looks like a small blood clot. This is not the “beautiful baby with delicate features and a full head of hair” Riley keeps hanging over his desk. Is that a little weird or what?

What the opposition keeps insisting on showing us are posters of miscarriages that happen late in pregnancy. It suits their purposes to say these are abortions that women, apparently somewhat whimsically, decided to undergo.

Just to keep the arithmetic straight, approximately 8% or 120,000 abortions are in the second trimester and that is almost always for health reasons where a continuing pregnancy would endanger the life of the woman. Only a tiny fraction, 1/100th of 1%, are performed during the third trimester and those exclusively for serious medical reasons. (Source: Alan Guttmacher Institute and National Abortion Federation).

Why do these men keep on flogging the dead horse of the “horrors” of abortion? Women need access to abortion for any number of reasons and these men, who will never have to face such a decision, should keep their noses out of it.

PEG YORKIN

Los Angeles