Letter: End hypocrisy of abortion rules

Dr Ann Dally
Monday 06 January 1997 19:02 EST
Comments

Your support helps us to tell the story

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.

Your support makes all the difference.

Sir: Has anyone made a serious attempt to calculate how many foetal lives would actually be saved by repealing the abortion law? The number of illegal abortions before 1967 is obviously impossible to count but there have been estimates of 250,000 per annum or more. When I was a young doctor, illegal abortion seemed to be everywhere. I suspect that few if any foetal lives would be saved by reverting to that situation.

What is certain is that we would return to a situation that filled the country's emergency gynaecological wards with exsanguinated, sometimes infected, sometimes dying women. Anyone who worked in those wards is likely to regard abortion as inevitable and illegal abortion as a preventable evil.

Dr ANN DALLY

Graffham, West Sussex

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in