In a May 2 letter to The Post, Dr. Kenneth Brown wrote that the Supreme Court's recent decision to uphold the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003 threatens a woman's right to make personal medical decisions and that it leaves women with only the alternative of turning to procedures that are more dangerous than partial birth abortion.
Dr. Brown is leaving out important information. For example, he neglects to tell readers that the dilation and extraction method of abortion ' commonly known as partial birth abortion ' is most often used late in a woman's pregnancy, often in the third trimester after a fetus is able to survive outside the womb (viability). Prior to the third trimester, several other procedures are used which are much safer than D&X (partial birth abortion). The legislation passed by Congress in 2003 made provision for D&X to be used if necessary to save the life of a pregnant woman, but no health exception was included because Congress determined that there is never any health reason to use D&X. Congress also feared that the courts would interpret the health exception in such a way that partial birth abortions would still be performed in medically unnecessary situations.
An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll conducted at the end of April found that 53 percent of Americans supported the Supreme Court's decision to uphold the ban and only 34 percent opposed it. It seems to me that Dr. Brown is thus correct in saying that the voice of the people will be heard at the ballot box in 2008, but that voice may not be saying what he's hoping for. Most Americans think that this late-term, often post-viability procedure should be illegal. I suspect that many OU students are among them.
' Nate Nelson is a freshman political science major.
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Letter to the Editor
