Choices for Childbearing, Abortion
Re Perspectives on Abortion, Commentary, Jan. 23: The column by Sydna Masse spoke of things that I have been feeling for close to 28 years. In 1970 I had an abortion. Like Sydna I had counseling. No other options were given me. There was no suggestion of the possibility of adoption, help with keeping the child, nothing but the option of abortion. I, too, was young and receiving pressure from the father and my own family to have an abortion.
After the abortion I had to receive psychiatric assistance. Did it help? Not really. For over 27 years I have lived with the guilt and sorrow of aborting my child. I can only wonder if counseling services today are giving women the options that I was not given, or are they still promoting abortion?
Women do not really need to become pregnant in the first place. There are many very effective methods of birth control available. Come on, guys, do your share in the birth control field.
SHEILA CHUNG
West Covina
* It cannot ever be guaranteed that we will never regret our decisions in life. Nevertheless we must be allowed to make them. That includes both having as well as not having a baby. Masse does not understand what feminism is really about: the right for both men and women to make choices!
ELIZABETH LAPPO
Burbank
* Yet more crocodile tears from the pro-life brigade. I find it hard to believe that Focus on the Family is concerned with the lives of the unborn when at the same time they advocate prohibition [of abortion]. Prohibition is proven to fail miserably regarding any “moral sin,” from drugs and alcohol to prostitution.
Pro-life is more about control than compassion, and led by conservatives, fits snugly into their agenda of more government intrusion into our personal lives.
NIK GREEN
Isla Vista
* I challenge psychotherapists Candace DePuy and Dana Dovitch. What kind of smug, selfish, me-first Americans are we that we can use “lifestyle” as justification for aborting a family member, having “other plans” at age 39? What a loss for that individual to never to be born into that family of means. And what an illogical, unjustified moral decision, “I chose for me.” Did the baby have a choice?
My daughters had more children as they neared 40 and these children are now a great joy, not only to their parents but also to their grandfather. There is a moral limit at fulfilling one’s wishes. In our life we are asked and challenged to act in the love of God, to follow his commandments and strive to “do unto others as we would unto ourselves.” Wake up, selfish America!
MARIO MICHAEL MARTINI
Pacific Palisades