First off, Abraham Smith is misleading people (“Abortion is not a ‘gray area’; it’s wrong,” Sunday, April 2). The majority of abortions occur in the first trimester. The few late-term abortions that do take place are usually done for medical reasons, involving the health and welfare of the mother.

And it’s because of anti-choice advocates like Mr. Smith that women are often denied access to the morning-after pill, which would make abortions unnecessary.

Mr. Smith touts adoption as the only choice a woman should have if an unwanted pregnancy occurs. But why should a woman have to give up nine months of her life to please the Mr. Smiths of this world? Having the baby and keeping it or putting it up for adoption doesn’t offer a woman an alternative to an unwanted pregnancy; with either of these so-called choices, she is still pregnant.

Obviously since Mr. Smith is a man, he will never know the terror, violation and humiliation of being raped, thus it is easy for him to say that a woman should just be forced to endure carrying her rapist’s baby for nine months.

If Mr. Smith truly wanted to end abortions he would work to ensure that health insurance covered birth control, that all women had access to cheap, reliable birth control, and that all women who needed it had access to the morning-after pill. If he truly cared about children, he would work to ensure that the children currently in the system waiting to be adopted had loving homes to go to (http://www.mdhs.state.ms.us/fcs_adoptall.html).

Contrary to what Mr. Smith claims, there are a lot of gray areas when it comes to abortion. The best choice for a civilized world is to allow women and their doctors to decide what is best for them without government interference.



Jade Roberts

Meridian