Abortion and Family Planning

* In his Jan. 30 column, “Bush Sop to the Right Hits Women Worldwide,” Robert Scheer writes of the “tens of thousands of women who will die in self-multilating attempts at abortion.” Doesn’t it go without saying that this also involves tens of thousands of innocent babies who are not responsible for the situation, however bad it is?

It seems to me also that “a woman’s right to choose” is an incomplete sentence. The right to choose what? To murder or not to murder her baby? A fertilized egg left to itself will ultimately result in a child. Why is it that ending a life a minute before it is born is an “abortion” and a minute after it is born it is “murder”?

I am a woman and Scheer does not speak for me.

JACQUELINE NINA JOHNSTON

Claremont

* When did family planning become all about abortion? I remember going to the local clinic for methods to avoid pregnancy. The counseling only offered abortion as the last possible and least desirable alternative to failed birth control. It appears that every option for avoiding the need for an abortion has been forced out of reach for those who need it most.

Sex education in schools is not allowed to address anything but abstinence, and family planning clinics are closing down in the U.S. due to extreme anti-abortion activists and abroad by presidential decree. How do we expect people to avoid the back alleys if we choose not to educate on the alternatives?

R.L. ASHURST

Huntington Beach

* Once again, Patt Morrison dazzles with the clarity and wit of her column (Jan. 26). Her notion of sending contributions to Planned Parenthood (and other organizations the Bush administration wants to gut) with a card to President Bush, telling him that the donation has been made in his name, should increase the fund-raising ability of these groups manyfold.

I certainly intend to increase my support and inform Bush that he is the reason for doing so.

ELAINE SMITHAM

Los Angeles