
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, June 13, 1993                   TAG: 9306150380
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: D-2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

`CHOICE' BILL ISN'T PRO-ABORTION

A MAY 20 Associated Press article reported that a congressional committee had voted to support the Freedom of Choice Act ("House panel OKs abortion bill"). It stated that the legislation is "guaranteeing abortion as a right under federal law."

Several pages later, there was another article regarding illegal abortions in Brazil that stated, "the findings provide yet another example of how women faced with unwanted pregnancies will resort to illegal abortions, whatever the costs to their health."

The `choice' measure is hardly "pro-abortion," as some describe it. It simply writes the Roe vs. Wade decision into federal law, thereby ensuring that a woman can have access to safe, legal abortions and not the dangerous kind that women in Brazil are forced to endure.

Too bad so much time, money and energy are spent fighting over the politics and semantics of abortion, when both sides need to direct those considerable forces toward preventing unintended pregnancy. HARRIET C. DAVIDSON ROANOKE

by CNB