Opinion: The intellectual dishonesty of the antiabortion term ‘prenatal children’

To the editor: I’m all for designing a societal scheme that eliminates or at least minimizes the need for abortion services. And I invite Charles Camosy to offer concrete suggestions that would help to achieve that goal as long as his “replacing of social structures” doesn’t in any way impede a woman’s right to choose. (“The GOP is craven and the Democrats are extremist on an abortion restriction most Americans favor,” Opinion, Oct. 9)

And there’s the rub. Camosy has no interest in protecting a woman’s sovereignty over her own body. He condemns pro-choice advocates as “abortion extremists” while he embraces a repressive anti-choice agenda.

Orwellian manipulations of language by the anti-choice crowd are nothing new. But consider Camosy’s term “prenatal children,” implying that the fetus is an actual and realized child when, biologically, it clearly is not. In an intellectually dishonest effort to deny women the right to manage their own bodies and, really, their own lives, Camosy indulges in the insidious fabrication of contrived categories of life.

Andrew Spathis, Los Angeles

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To the editor: Many later-term abortions are sought by women of lower economic status. Some did not realize they were pregnant, and others hoped their circumstances would change. For women, deciding to have an abortion is always a wrenching decision.

Camosy is a Democrat, but most antiabortion activists are not. These same people also try to make contraceptives more difficult to obtain, are skeptical of welfare programs for the poor and oppose universal healthcare.

If we want to reduce the number of abortions, we need to help women, not punish them and their children who would be born into a world that does not give them support.

If we had a good safety net, like in other rich countries, abortion would be rarer. It is not by chance that we have a high abortion rate compared to other wealthy developed countries.

Marie Matthews, San Pedro

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To the editor: The backlash against the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act’s reproductive rights provisions extends to morning-after drugs and contraception. Why should I take the proposed 20-week limit as anything but the thin edge of the wedge putting Congress back in the business of regulating our sex lives?

Ed Schlipf, Lancaster

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