THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, October 13, 1995 TAG: 9510130002
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A14 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Letter
LENGTH: Short : 39 lines
``Pro-choice group opens drive on local billboards'' (news, Sept. 28) was misleading.
First, the group's billboard ``Believe it: Most Church Going Americans Believe a Woman Should Decide'' ignores both Roper and Gallup surveys over many years which confirm that a broad consensus supports a variety of restrictions on abortion, such as parental notification/consent and those in the Supreme Court's Casey decision. The assertion is true only when asked whether all abortions should be illegal.
Second, the group worried ``anti-choice groups would . . . rent all of the billboards." This concern is bizarre, given repeated and consistent studies that have shown pro-abortion activists and their supporters are almost invariably wealthy, while pro-life activists are nearly always fiscally struggling in both their persons and organizations.
Compare the lobbying and campaign-contribution budgets of Planned Parenthood, NARL and Emily's List to those of National Right-to-Life and Operation Rescue to confirm this. All this money is devoted to resisting any restriction on the procedure, including parental notification. Should we believe they'd start a billboard campaign if they lacked the money to win?
They seem far more concerned with resisting any restriction than they are in reducing 1.5 million lives extinguished every year in the U.S. by abortions. I will take these groups more seriously when I see them invest in attacking the causes of unwanted pregnancies (like our culture of boundless sensuality) than in resisting measures to restrain abortions.
JAMES G. THOMSON
Chesapeake, Sept. 29, 1995 by CNB