Letters to the Editor: These are the cases where ‘pro-lifers’ must allow abortions
A staff member hugs a patient after informing her on June 24 that the clinic, Alamo Women’s Reproductive Services in San Antonio, could no longer provide abortions.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
- Share via
To the editor: Regardless of your stance on abortion, there is a crisis in our country under the surface. Solving this crisis is commonsense and represents the best interests of both political parties as well as all American women and children. I offer you three scenarios, currently unfolding in our country at this very moment, that must be solved now with commonsense measures:
- Define life-saving procedures that pregnant women are eligible for across our country. Consider ectopic pregnancies, where the embryo is implanted outside the uterus, representing a nonviable pregnancy that risks the mother’s life. One of every 50 pregnancies is ectopic. Can we agree to always provide life-saving care in these situations?
- Define cases where the health of the mother will take precedence over the fetus. Consider that they may already have a child or children at home that are relying on their love and care. How might we protect them?
- Consider young women who biologically can conceive but are 8, 9, 10, 11 or 12 years old and are victims or rape or incest. Consider the psychological harm that is being done to them by forcing them to give birth while they themselves are children. Can we agree to intervene for them?
I beseech our elected officials to come together with women’s health professionals to immediately clear up these and other cases. There are no children without women, so being “pro-life” starts with protecting mothers.
Denise Woods, Long Beach
