The Editor, Sir:

Anne Arthur, in a letter titled 'Who distorts the abortion debate?' (The Gleaner, October 10), claims that "the statistics of the Ministry of Health (MOH) are misquoted in applying all data as if they refer to 'induced abortion', which they are not. Gynaecologists call any loss of pregnancy 'abortion', and it is this overall term that the MOH paper refers to.

"That's not what we debate here. We are debating whether or not a woman should be allowed to terminate her pregnancy wilfully by aborting the child she is carrying. The MOH data cannot help in this respect."

This is woefully incorrect. Women are already wilfully having abortions. They already are allowing themselves to terminate a pregnancy. The debate is really about the circumstances under which this can be legally permitted. So, based on this, the MOH data are actually helpful.

Let us go directly to the data that Jenny Jones referred to. According to Jones, the MOH reported that an average of over 1,000 women per year are admitted to our public hospitals because of complications resulting from unsafe abortions.

The report, as the MOH produced it for a UN study, is reproduced below:

COMPLICATIONS OF ABORTIONS OTHER THAN THOSE LEGALLY DONE IN HOSPITALS

Discharges for complications of unsafe abortions

Year No.

2003 1,441

2004 1,094

2005 1,074

2006 1,080

Source: Ministry of Health

Illegal abortions are not reported, unless the woman presents at a government health-care facility for a complication. Complications would be known from a patient's history or from medical examination findings on admission.

There is a difference between a spontaneous abortion (i.e. a miscarriage) and an induced abortion. An unsafe abortion includes methods, such as taking certain drugs without medical supervision, going to an unregulated medical facility to procure one using unclean instruments; drinking certain concoctions; inserting herbal preparations into the vagina or cervix; and, placing foreign bodies, such as a stick or coat hanger, into the uterus.

So the question I would have for Anne Arthur is, what do we do about these women who do not want to have the child and are willing to go through all this just not to have it? What is the point of having an unwanted child? If they wilfully abort a foetus, it is what it is. It is done wilfully. What part about that is difficult to understand?

Sex education

Until we get to a point where sex education in this country is adequate and where rape and incest do not exist, abortions (illegal or legal) will be done by women. When a woman decides to have an abortion, she has already exhausted her options. If she is willing to go the unsafe route, one must think of the circumstances of her life that she had to decide on to make that choice.

It does not matter what those who are opposed to women's choice over fertility think. It is what it is. They are not the ones carrying the foetus and thus are in no position, such as Anne Arthur, to wax lyrical about so-called 'child killing'.

I am, etc.,

REBEKAH LAWRENCE

navelstring@gmail.com