Will on Partial-Birth Abortion Procedure

Re “Where the Logic of Pro-Choice Falls Apart,” Column Right, Nov. 24 by George Will: How could anyone compare acts of murder and negligence to President Clinton’s veto of the late-term abortion bill? President Clinton vetoed this horribly unfair legislation after a tremendous amount of thought and prayer. He spoke to doctors, clergymen and mothers who had doomed pregnancies. I know; I was one of the women he spoke with and listened to. The president vetoed this legislation because it did not have a health exception.

Our son, Danny, had no brain and no stomach. He was desperately loved and very much wanted, but God decided he would not survive. My husband and I listened to the advice of numerous specialists and followed their advice to have a late-term abortion to protect my health and future fertility. The other mothers I have met who had late-term abortions did so for exactly the same reasons.

Teenagers who kill their baby are guilty of murder, women who leave their babies on a doorstep are guilty of child abuse and Will is guilty of ignorance and stupidity.

MARY-DOROTHY LINE

Los Angeles

* I want to say “thank you” to Will. It is nice to know that someone of his caliber as a writer has the courage of his convictions. President Clinton has a good track record on many issues but on this issue, he has failed miserably.

CECELIA KENNELLY-WAESCHLE

Beverly Hills

* Brian Peterson Jr. of Wilmington, Del., is accused of murdering his newly born son (Nov. 22). He tossed it in a trash bin to die. If, instead, he had merely left it in the birth canal and sucked the brains out, it would have been constitutionally protected “choice.”

JOHN JAEGER

Irvine

* Will’s logic would have us find no distinction between someone putting a healthy newborn into a dumpster and expectant parents making the painful decision to abort a severely malformed fetus after being told natural progression would put the mother at risk. The procedure used in these rare cases, that Will inaccurately calls the “partial-birth abortion,” is done for medical reasons.

Will’s divergence from the truth is an inexcusable insult to all those folks who have been faced with such a tragedy.

BOB STROH

Fillmore