In last Sunday’s Denver Post, columnist Krista Kafer wondered about the link between altrasound images and the nation’s abortion rate: “Perhaps a picture is worth more than a thousand words of advocacy. Perhaps that grainy but luminous image is the biggest reason that abortion is in decline.” (Thinkstock by Getty Images)
Re: “The ultrasound’s role in the decline in abortions,” June 14 Perspective article.
Krista Kafer cites lots of evidence concerning the relationship between falling abortion rates and public policy, and then in an act of stunning wishful thinking, she draws exactly the wrong conclusion. She wants to believe that women undergoing ultrasounds and viewing the images prior to terminating a pregnancy reduces the number who choose abortion. Her emotional attachment to the dusty ultrasound image at the back of the desk drawer of every parent causes her to overlook the actual data and its honest analysis.
Falling pregnancy rates explain the fall in abortion rates. It is not the emotional and financial ultrasound harassment that some states inflict on those choosing abortion that is driving down the rates. Three factors explain the falling pregnancy rates: falling teenage pregnancy rates; unsettled economics leading to delayed families; and Obamacare reducing the cost of effective, long-term contraception.
See fivethirtyeight.com for the real analysis.
Chuck Wilson, Golden
This letter was published in the June 21 edition.I don’t doubt that some women were persuaded to carry their child to term because a picture guilted them into it. More often than not, though, women having babies they either didn’t intend to have, or can’t afford, and largely with no father around to help, produces consequences all of society must bear. These are issues that must be confronted before we can address the issue of abortion.
Krista Kafer’s insinuation that a sonogram will solve the abortion dilemma is simplistic, an all-too-common thread with most anti-abortion enthusiasts. The drops in abortion rates are reminiscent of the drops in crime over the last 30 years. Everybody had their own pet theory as to why, until it was revealed that the drops coincided in every state with the increased availability of abortion throughout the ’70s and ’80s (see “Freakonomics” by Stephen J. Dubner and Steven D. Levitt). The people most at risk for crime didn’t materialize. Perhaps, at least in part, this may also explain the drops in abortion rates.
I’m glad abortion rates have dropped, but I doubt restrictive laws and guilt played any significant role.
Gerry Camilli, Englewood
This letter was published in the June 21 edition.I want to commend The Denver Post for publishing Krista Kafer’s opinion piece on the first page of the Perspective section. It is nice to see an article speaking of the humanity of the fetus and why the ultrasound image of the beating heart and little hands and cute feet with 10 toes is so important.
I would encourage anyone who has been told by Planned Parenthood that the fetus is just a product of conception to look at a few ultrasounds and then try to convince themselves they are not looking at a human being in its earliest days of development.
John Pickard, Lakewood
This letter was published in the June 21 edition.
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