Copyright 1999 P.G. Publishing Co.
Pittsburgh
Post-Gazette
November 16, 1999, Tuesday, SOONER EDITION
SECTION: EDITORIAL, Pg. A-10, LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
LENGTH: 307 words
HEADLINE:
VIABLE INFANTS ABORTED
BYLINE: EDWARD G. KELLY, M.D.;
UPPER ST. CLAIR
BODY:
I wish to set the
record straight regarding the false statements in Ellen Goodman's Nov. 3 column,
"Stealth Tactics." The column offered her views concerning recent court rulings
on the procedure known, says Goodman, "colloquially and incorrectly as '
partial-birth abortion.' "
She additionally refers
thereafter to this procedure as the "rare surgical technique known as dilation
and extraction."
My comments deal with her comment that this procedure
is almost entirely reserved for pregnancies that have gone tragically awry,
often threatening the pregnant woman.
In the Post-Gazette on March 17,
1997, columnist Charles Krauthammer discussed how Ron Fitzsimmons, an
abortion-rights advocate, admitted that he had "lied through his teeth" in
making up facts about the number of and rationale for partial-birth abortions.
The column also states that Dr. Martin Haskell, at that time the
country's leading partial-birth abortion practitioner, was asked by American
Medical News why he just doesn't dilate the woman's uterus a little bit more and
allow a live baby to come out. His answer was "the point is here you're
attempting to do an abortion . . . not to see how do I manipulate the situation
so that I get a live birth instead."
In the same column, Krauthammer
said a doctor at a New Jersey clinic, which performed by its own doctors'
estimate at least 1,500 of these procedures, told The (Bergen) Record: "Most are
for elective, not medical, reasons: people who didn't realize or didn't care how
far along they were."
Without going into details previously widely
published, it is well-known that the procedure involves removal of an infant who
would be a premature birth but certainly viable and, it appears, most often
normal - in contrast to Ms. Goodman's assertion.
EDWARD G. KELLY, M.D.
Upper St. Clair
LOAD-DATE: November 16, 1999
