The Editor, Sir:

Your 'Letter of the Day' of September 9, over the signature of Peggy A Scott, CEO , Jamaica Family Planning Association, clearly demonstrates the unidimensional approach to analysis of the issue of legalisation of abortion that technical persons within the ministry of health appear to bring to this important debate.

Ms Scott is careful not to give figures for Jamaica , however abortion is the eighth leading cause of maternal mortality in this country.

Between 2001 and 2003 there were six maternal deaths because of abortion. Even one is too many.

There is no doubt that the maternal mortality and morbidity which derive from induced abortion must be addressed, but is legalising abortion a satisfactory solution ?

Complications

Apart from the fact that abortion is always the deliberate taking of human life with the complete extinction of its potential, the prescription itself is not without side effects and does not address many of the factors which lead to a demand for abortion.

The following should be noted:

Induced abortion may be associated with an increased risk of breast cancer.

Legal abortions, for example, in Canada have a 10 per cent risk of short-term physical complications.

Some women who have abortions develop emotional/psychological problems related to the procedure.

Twenty-five years after Roe vs. Wade should have made 'every child a wanted child;, the incidence of child abuse in the United States has increased.

The Alan Guttmacher Institute, the research arm of Planned Parenthood, the largest provider of abortion services in the US, in its 2005 report stated that 93 per cent of abortions were done for socio-economic reasons.

In the US, blacks have the highest rate of abortion of any ethnic group, but this has not solved or caused to be solved many of the socio-economic challenges facing this group. They continue to have the highest rate of imprisonment, HIV infections etc, and of course, abortion.

Legalising killing as a means of solving problems leads to cultural change which expands the use of killing as a medical or social remedy. One example of the latter is the use of euthanasia for the terminally ill, then for the chronically ill, and for critically ill infants.

It is said that 'long cut draw sweat, but short cut draw blood'. Is there a risk that an aversion to the sweat of intellectual rigour in pursuing a solution to abortion-related maternal morbidity/mortality will cost Jamaica blood?

I am, etc.,

DR. W. WEST

wayne_west@hotmail.com

Senior lecturer,

Faculty of Medical Sciences

UWI, Mona