Abortion is a fact of life, like it or not
Abortion is the most contentious issue in American society, and will remain so for the foreseeable future.
While many consider abortion an act of murder that should be outlawed, doing so will result in the tragic loss of life for thousands of American women annually. Around 1900, an estimated 150,000 women per year in the U.S. were having illegal abortions, with one-in-six dying as a consequence of a botched procedure, infection or bleeding. Since Roe v. Wade became law in 1973, using 1900 statistics, almost 1 million women's lives would have been lost to date had abortions not been performed by trained practitioners in medical facilities.
If you have a daughter, granddaughter or niece, the thought of losing them because they couldn't obtain a medical abortion in a hospital setting is unacceptable to most people.
While no one "likes" abortion, it is a necessary "fact of life" that women have been dealing with since the dawn of humanity, and every attempt should be made to make abortion an unnecessary choice, a "last resort," and one that will not unnecessarily endanger the woman's life should this course be pursued.
Criminalizing abortion will cause the needless death of tens of thousands of women every year across the U.S. While saving the unborn is a noble ideal, providing medically available abortions to women is also a merciful act, and the correct thing to do if you care about human life. The choice to have an abortion is a personal tragedy for every woman and one that might have been avoided had safe and effective birth control been available, or sex education during the schooling years, or because of the inability to support a child.
Telling a woman to use a coat hanger or get a back-alley abortion is not an option.
Richard Averett
Otego
Gas drilling is promising industry
I love the anti-drillers' tone of moral and intellectual superiority. In her Feb. 8 letter to the editor, Teresa Winchester upbraids me for saying, "There has never been an instance in New York of fracking fluid contaminating someone's well." Teresa then suggests that my "vision appears to be clouded by dollar signs in my eyes."
The vision is I see jobs, I see our youths not leaving the area. I see industry coming because of affordable energy. I see the growth of small business. I see people buying homes, paying mortgages.
Wrong on the facts and wrong on assumptions, Teresa. For 20 years, hydrofracking has been used in New York. Thousands of wells have been hydrofracked. Closer to home, more than 100 wells have been hydrofracked in the Norwich area. Gastem wells in Otsego County have been hydrofracked. Check with the DEC if you doubt my words. As for the anomaly of Dimock, the problem occurred when Cabot Oil encountered unexpected gas at the 1,500-foot level and methane migrated up an improperly cemented drill casing. It had nothing to do with the hydrofracking, which took place more than 1 mile below. Again, this can be checked with the Pennsylvania DEP.
As for the "cloudy vision," I can see very well, thank you. And the future could be bright. Of course individual landowners will profit. But so will our region, our state and our nation. Check the job growth of 48,000 in Pennsylvania last year. That could be us!
New York imports 95 percent of the natural gas we use each year. That percentage can be reversed. Our nation is dependent on countries that don't like us. This situation can be ameliorated. Finally, natural gas usage reduces CO2 and particulate emissions into the atmosphere. How's that for vision, Teresa?
Anna Marie Lusins-McLachlan
Oneonta
