Mailbag: Recall the dangerous time before Roe v. Wade

Let me share with you what it was like before Roe vs. Wade, when abortion was illegal in every state.

Contraception was legal in New York, but not in some other states. I was fortunate to have never had an unwanted pregnancy, thanks to contraceptives provided me by Planned Parenthood.

In 1964, pregnant with my first child, I was waiting for a prenatal doctor visit at the maternity clinic in New York Hospital. Sitting on the bench beside me was a young, married mother of four children. She suffered from heart failure, and her doctor had warned her that another birth was likely to cause her death.

But there she was, pregnant and probably going to die and leave her four children and a newborn without their mother and her husband without his wife.

I lived several blocks from a public hospital, where a visit to the emergency room would often find doctors frantically trying to stop a woman from hemorrhaging to death from a botched or self-induced abortion. Sometimes the doctors succeeded, but often the woman died.

Abortion was illegal, yet when I was in my 20s, all of my closest friends had undergone an abortion. One was only 16 at the time. Many abortions were obtained by married women with several children who could not face having yet another infant to care for.

Even now, pregnancy entails a substantial risk of the woman’s death. According to a 2012 study, the rate at which women die giving birth to a live child is 8.8 per 100,000, about 14 times the rate of death from a legal, induced abortion.

The decision to abort a pregnancy is rarely made lightly.

No one wants to have an abortion, but no law will stop a desperate woman from obtaining one. So the issue is not whether abortions can be stopped but rather whether those abortions that must be done are done lawfully and safely and save women’s lives.

Eleanor Egan

Costa Mesa

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Writer mischaracterizes ‘pro-life’

Re. “Commentary: Use of fetal tissue is truly being ‘pro-life’,” (Aug. 23):

The writer describes Planned Parenthood as “the first line of healthcare ... for both men and women who have nowhere else to turn,” which is a point well taken.

The writer points out that abortion is legal and has “existed as long as pregnancy has existed.” Both are true but neither makes abortion morally right.

The writer disagrees with the manner in which the term pro-life is used and wrote in part: “These are the same people who never raise a voice or lift a finger to advocate for children who do not have enough to eat, who are denied an adequate education ... ,” which implies a knowledge of the motives and actions of all people identified as being pro-life.

As a pro-life woman, I long for the day when the unborn are protected, the elderly are honored, children are safe and cherished, the homeless are treated with respect, and the kindness we all long for is extended to one another.

And I believe this begins with the way in which we treat babies in the womb.

Linda Magstadt

Newport Beach

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Men can sit out this argument

In the Pilot on Aug. 22, equal space was given in the Forum for both sides of the Planned Parenthood/abortion issue.

A pro-choice woman, reflecting on the commentary a few days earlier by a pro-life woman, presented a clear argument. Basically, she said we are in a democracy, where freedom of religion is a right accepted by all, and freedom of choice with regard to abortion is not accepted by all.

The man wrote against freedom of choice for women, referring to it as “pro-abortion” and offering extreme metaphors to illustrate his point of view.

“Pro-abortion” is an incendiary term. No one carries a sign saying, “I am for abortions,” but abortion is often the only choice for a woman.

And as a woman, I don’t pay a lot of attention to men’s arguments against Planned Parenthood or abortion. This might seem closed-minded and unreasonable, but in my blunt opinion, a man has no business saying women shouldn’t have total control over their own bodies, including having a timely abortion, if they and their doctors so decide.

Liz Newman

Corona del Mar