Adoption vs. abortion

Re “Giuliani’s adoption fallacy,” Opinion, Oct. 29

Cory L. Richards is completely on target. The best way to decrease the number of abortions is to make contraception and high-quality sex education more widely accessible. Women who are struggling with unwanted pregnancies need to receive accurate, unbiased and compassionate counseling on all their pregnancy options.

This doesn’t always happen. Recent research shows doctors edit what they tell their patients based on their moral beliefs, and staff in many religiously affiliated institutions are prohibited from giving women the information they need to make fully informed decisions. We don’t need public policies based on erroneous information to make this situation worse.

Lisa Maldonado

Brooklyn, N.Y.

Richards correctly questions one major argument that anti-choice people like to make: More adoptions mean fewer abortions. As a former four-year volunteer escort at a women’s health clinic in Sacramento, I regularly asked clinic protesters how many hard-to-place, unwanted children each of them had adopted. The answer was always equivocal: “I would but I already have two (or three or four) children of my own.”

The obvious question to Rudy Giuliani is, “How many hard-to-place children have you personally adopted, Mr. Mayor?”

Hank Kocol

Roseville, Calif.

Richards argues that the 113% increase in the adoption rate in New York while Giuliani was mayor had absolutely no effect on the abortion rate, which dropped by 16.8% during his tenure. Richards claims that because few newborns are placed for adoption, there can be no link to the abortion issue, and any simultaneous changes in both rates are unrelated. That’s absurd. Giuliani -- and others who seek to reduce abortions -- is focused on adoption precisely because too few women view adoption as a viable alternative to abortion.

Giuliani brought about an increase in adoptions and decrease in abortions because he governed as a true conservative. He helped move 640,000 New Yorkers off welfare. As one columnist wrote, “Giuliani’s campaign for personal responsibility helped create a climate that discouraged abortion.”

Do we want adoption to become more widely viewed as a viable alternative to abortion? Of course. Giuliani is committed to taking his proven formula to the White House. With his leadership, we can continue to work toward a cultural shift that places adoption before abortion. This is our challenge -- not a reason to give up, as Richards suggests.

Rep. David Dreier

(R-San Dimas)