: A®- Wednesday, Sept. 9, 1981 - North Shore News

Dear Editor:

The Chairman of the
Hospital Board's fairness in
the conduct of the LGH
meeting is commendable;
however, I hope his
preference for antiseptic
kiHing to ‘“‘back-alley
abortions” is not the basis for
current LGH policy. The
back-alley argument is no
longer valid.

Between 1958 and 1969,
when the law was changed to
permit abortion if the
continuation of pregnancy
endangered the womans life
or health (as opposed to
well-being), an average of
12.3 women died each year

- self-induced or

in Canada as a result of a
criminal
abortion (Badgley Report, p.
66). While that is un-
fortunate, contrast it with
the 600 abortions performed
in Canada in 1969 and the
60,000 in 1979. In his book
“Aborting America” Dr.
Bernard Nathanson, former
director of the world’s
largest abortion clinic in
New York (60,000 abortions
performed in one-and-a-half
years) expressed the view
that the old backstreet
argument is wholly invalid
and obsolete with modern
abortion procedures.

In the early “70s, the

Attitude appalling

Dear Editor:

I am writing in regards to
your reply to Dan Riley's
letter of August 26, 1981, in
which you explain your
philosophy for burying rape
incidents on page AS (“...
somewhat less direct con-
cern to the maximum
number or readers ...”)

In short, I find your at-
titude appalling. With the
increase in rapes on the
North Shore and especially
the attempted rapes on small
children, I find it in-

comprehensible that you
feel North Shore readers are
more rested
front page stories such “WV
orders crackdown on sloppy
drivers” (Aug. 12) and
“Probation kids think work
program a joke” (Aug. 2)

Would you be as in-
sensitive to rape if your son,
duaghter, wife, or mother
were raped?

Margaret Young
North Vancouver

in recent

abortion laws were tightened

in Eastern Europe. The fact
is that the number of
abortion deaths dropped in
Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia,
Hungary and Poland. The
one exception was Rumania,
where backstreet abortion
was a marked feature of
their society and the
abortion rate was the highest
in the world (four legal
abortions for every live
birth). If tightening the law

drives women to the
backstreets one is left
wondering why in those

countries. there has been no

increase in either total
Geaths from all causes
among women in the

childbearing groups or in
abortion deaths.

A 1973 study by Drs.
Hilgers and Shearin of the
Mayo Clinic assembled 21
scientific reports from 1}
countries. They reported
that the passage of per-
missive abortion laws had no
effect on the criminal
abortion rate in eight
countries, while the rate had
actually increased in three.

Dr. Hilgers also reported
that more women are now
dying of abortion in New
York City than before the
introduction of abortion on
demand, and mast of the
deaths have been from legal.

SEPTEMBER lO 11

{HOURS. 10 A.M. TC 1O P.M.

not illegal, abortions.

Studies in Britain have
established that there has
been little or no decline in
the number of backstreet
abortions since a more
liberal law was enacted there
in 1967.

A 1972 article in the
British Medical Journal
included a report from the
United Bristol Hospitals that
the legalization of abortion
“Has either engendered a
less responsible attitude to
contraception or there has
been an actual increase in
the number of promiscuous

pregnancies in unmarried
women.”

In Abortion: The Personal
Dilemma, Dr. R.F.R.

Gardner says studies con-
firm the view that legal
abortion is largely addressed
to an entirely new clientele
of women who would never
have had a criminal abortion
and would give birth to the
child if the possibility of
legal abortion did not exist.
Legalized abortion has
been a failure. Far from
solving the problems of self-
induced or criminal abor-
tions, the law has merely
encouraged an irresponsible
attitude

toward our
procreative powers. To
those physicians and

hospital board members who

IF YOU SAW this man
up im the trees near
Capilano Road a couple
of weeks ago and
wondered what he was
doing, it can now be
revealed that it was B.C.
Tel worker Bill
Strachan working on the
wires as the poles had to
be moved back several
feet to allow for a road
widening. (Eric Eggert-
son photo)

Correction:
The Phone Number
for the
West Vancouver
Aquatic Centre

is

926-8585

not 986 8585 Our
apotogies for any inconve
mence this error may have
caused Register now tor
tall progran.s!

|YOU ARE CORDIALLY INVITED TO AN

EXHIBIT AND SALE
|OF RARE SOMTH AMERICAN
WOOD SCULTURES & RUGS

IN THE MACKENZIE ROCM OF
THE BAYSHCRE

12

MARIO VLODAVETR

CELLINI IMPCRTS

advocate choice I repeat the
words of Dr. Christopher
Hufeland: “If the physician
presumes to take into
consideration in his work
whether a life has value or
not, the consequences are
boundless and the physician
becomes the most dangerous
man in the state.”

George C. Carruthers
Member of the Board

Lions Gate Hospital
North Vancouver

Call Classified
986-6222

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