Justice Blackmon and Legal Abortion

October 26, 1995

Editors

American Journal of Public Health
American Public Health Association
1015 15th Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20005

Letter for publication:

"Topics for our times: Justice Blackmon and legal abortion -- a besieged legacy to women's reproductive health" (AJPH 185:124-26, Sept. 1995) begs belief. Two perspectives.

First, the misuse of science: To compare the relative safety of a first trimester abortion to child birth is the first sign of a scientific charlatan. To say that early abortion is 23 times safer than carrying and delivering a child is just like saying that driving your child to your local school may be 23 times safer than driving him to Kukamonga. How unscientific can so-called scientists get?

Second, the misreading of the Supreme Court abortion rulings such that they give the woman "a right to choose" is a massive sociopolitical lie. A reasoned, accurate review of the abortion rulings gives that abortion deciding to the physician if he performs what "good physicians" are expected to do. Then the Supreme Court gave its expectations for physicians very clearly. The contempt for the court by those of us against abortion is dwarfed by the disrespect abortion proponents have for the court when they willfully misread the abortion decisions themselves. This willful misreading of the abortion decisions of 1973 is the most appalling mockery of the United States judiciary in American history.

Very truly yours,

Samuel A. Nigro, M.D.