Letter to the editor of January 28, 2004 to The Tower @ Kean University, Union, New Jersey

Please come down from the Tower ..
woman need the truth!

(An open letter to The Tower, the school newspaper of Kean University,
in response to the editorial by Laura Dembinski}


January 28, 2004

Dear Ms. Dembinski,

In response to you recent editorial, you began by comparing the views of so-called �anti-abortionists with your view. You stated �Anti-abortionists see partial-birth abortions as an inhuman and grotesque act of slaughter. But what the ban does is even worse: it places women who may need the procedure in grave danger.�

May I respectfully argue (1) an inhuman, grotesque act of slaughter is exactly how to describe this �procedure� (2) Although nothing should ever be compared as �even worse�, your personal view that this places women in danger is totally false.

Women don�t need to be told that a partial birth abortion will save their life. Aborting a baby will in no way extend the life of the mother, nor will it help to cure her; to the contrary, a serious medical procedure on an already ill person increases the chances of injury or death.

With this said, the Partial Birth Abortion Ban would allow use of the procedure if �necessary to save the life of a mother whose life is endangered by a physical disorder, physical illness, or physical injury, including a life-endangering physical condition caused by or arising from the pregnancy itself.�

Your description itself should horrify any women even thinking about such a procedure. No mention was made in your editorial of the serious injuries that a second or third trimester abortion can have on the mother herself.

�Former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop has said that no competent physician with state-of-the art skill in the management of high-risk pregnancies needs to perform a partial birth abortion.� http://www.youdebate.com/deabates/abortionpartial.htm

Your support of this procedure indicates either ignorance of this, or an
acceptance that those who do these abortions lack the skills to adequately
treat the mother and the child as separate patients.

AMA Executive Vice President P. John Seward, M.D., has written this in support of such a ban: �Thank you for the opportunity to work with you towards restricting a procedure we all agree is not good medicine.� {May 1997, letter to Senator Rick Santorum (R-Pa.)}
Here�s one of the myths (in your own words), which help to promote ignorance on this issue� �Bush has put the lives and health of women in jeopardy.�

This isn�t about President Bush. �This is NOT about the safety of women.. If the woman's life were really in danger, then a Partial Birth Abortion would kill her, if she survives the Partial Birth Abortion, then her life was never in danger. There are other procedures that they can do instead of the Partial Birth. There is no doctor or any other medical expert says that the Partial Birth is necessary for survival. If there would be a problem in the pregnancy, then it would have been noticed in the 3rd or 4th month, maybe 5th month at the latest.� www.unsolvedmysteries.com/usm361662.html

This isn�t about Republicans or Democrats. In a letter on April 22, 1997, Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (Democrat-South Dakota) wrote, "Abortion is wrong. We, as a society, should do everything we can to prevent it." Sen. Daschle actually changed his vote in May 1997, and voted for the bill banning partial-birth abortion.�

�Several usually pro-abortion SenatorsDaniel Patrick Moynihan (D-New York), Robert Byrd (D-West Virginia) and Tom Daschle (D-South Dakota) and RepresentativesDavid Bonior (D-Michigan), Richard Gephardt (D-Missouri) and Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio)have voted for the ban in the past.� http://www.rantweb.com/pba.html Politicians know the truth!

�In a recent Gallup poll, 71 percent of respondents said they favored a ban on partial-birth abortions, except to save the mothers life.� The average American knows the truth!

Planned Parenthood, the largest abortion advocate in the United States, in �a 1965 pamphlet called "Plan Your Children" said this: "Is [family planning] abortion? Definitely not. An abortion kills the life of a baby after it has begun. It is dangerous to your life and health. It may make you sterile so that when you want a child, you cannot have it." http://www.rantweb.com/pba.html Abortion providers know the truth!
A leading pro-choice apologist has said this: �"In the vast majority of cases, the procedure is performed on a healthy mother with a healthy fetus that is 20 weeks or more along. The abortion-rights folks know it, the anti-abortion folks know it, and so, probably, does everyone else." {Ron Fitzsimmons Executive Director for the National Coalition of Abortion Providers The New York Times, February 26, 1997} Pro-choice advocates know the truth!
This is about women

q Doesn�t the women know that her baby feels pain during this barbaric procedure? She certainly does. �At the 19-20 week stage of development when partial-birth abortions are performed, the baby may feel pain even more intensely because the brain has not yet developed the capabilities for blocking pain. {Congress, Senate, Joint Hearing Before the Senate Judiciary Committee and the Constitution Subcommittee of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee, Partial-birth Abortion Ban Act: Testimony of Douglas Johnson, Legislative Director for the National Right to Life Committee, 105th Cong., 1st sess., 11 March 1997.}
q Don�t abortionists know? They certainly do.

o Dr. Martin Haskell, one of the creators of the procedure, who told the AMA News in 1993 �that he had performed more than 1,000 partial-birth abortions� said this �I�ll be quite frank; most of my abortions are elective in that 20-24 week range .. In my particular case, probably 20% are for genetic reasons. And the other 80% performed are purely elective.�

o �The same action taken on the same baby at the same stage of development would be felony infanticide if the child moved a mere three inches further down the birth canal.� {Partial-Birth Abortion Is Not About Abortion: Gregory Koukl: http://www.str.org/free/commentaries/abortion/notabout.htm

This may be about race

In New Jersey, abortions by African Americans outnumber those by Caucasians five to one. In New Jersey, 80% of all partial birth abortions take place upon the bodies of African American women. 40% of all PBA�s take place in New Jersey. Could it be argued that this procedure is �black genocide�?

"There are those who argue that the right to privacy is of [a] higher order than the right to life ... that was the premise of slavery. You could not protest the existence or treatment of slaves on the plantation because that was private and therefore outside your right to be concerned.

"What happens to the mind of a person, and the moral fabric of a nation, that accepts the aborting of the life of a baby without a pang of conscience? What kind of a person and what kind of a society will we have 20 years hence if life can be taken so casually? It is that question, the question of our attitude, our value system, and our mind-set with regard to the nature and worth of life itself that is the central question confronting mankind. Failure to answer that question affirmatively may leave us with a hell right here on earth." Jesse Jackson - 1977 National Right to Life News

I help direct a women�s center that has seen in the past 18 years, over 17,000 women in the Essex and Union county areas alone. These women are mostly teens or in their early twenties. Many have been lied to about the true nature of the abortion �procedure�. I implore you to share the facts, not the political rhetoric. Yes, they are in �grave danger� � the danger of knowing the truth too late. Please, tell the truth.


Respectfully,



Rev. Dean Gavaris, Executive Director
Gateway Pregnancy Center, Irvington and Elizabeth, NJ