Letters | THE GREAT ABORTION/CONTRACEPTION DEBATE

AFTER READING (and agreeing with) Carol Towarnicky's op-ed

"More Contraception, Fewer Abortions,"

I went to my college health center and learned that I will now have to pay $35 a month for my birth control instead of $8.

The GOP-controlled Congress snuck through a measure in the Federal Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 that destroyed programs providing discount contraceptives at colleges across the country.

Congress proclaimed that drug manufacturers giving discounts to any programs must give the same discounts to federal programs, so drug-makers simply killed their discount programs.

As a result, college students now pay more for their contraceptives, and Medicaid and other such programs still carry the same burden they carried before.

Gee, thanks Congress! That sure was a great means of protecting the health and future of America's young women - and preventing the abortions preoccupying so many of our leaders.

Meg Kammerud, Lansdowne

Towarnicky has made a brilliant case against contraception. She said that "89 percent of women of childbearing age use some form of contraception." If this is true, then why are there still 1.3 million abortions annually in the U.S.?

Malcom Potts, medical director of Planned Parenthood has said, "Abortion and contraception are inextricably intertwined in their use." Planned Parenthood admits that 50 percent of mothers who have abortions were using some form of contraception. Now add in the fact that 85 percent of those 1.3 million abortions are performed on unmarried women. Towarnicky's next article should be: "More Saving Sex for Marriage, Fewer Abortions"!

Judi McLane, Generation Life

Towarnicky eloquently succeeds in both putting forth a "theory" and proving it wrong.

She says that "89 percent of women of childbearing age use some form of contraception." Yet she then says that 1.3 million abortions take place annually, giving us the highest abortion rate among developed nations.

Let's assume the 11 percent of women who don't use contraception either are attempting to have a child or are having at-risk (of pregnancy) sex. My question: How much more contraception do we need? If all women use contraception, using Carol's theory, abortions should go down.

Yet for some odd reason, the increased use of contraception has only accomplished one thing: America winning the abortion-rate championship of the developed world.

I would like to put forth my theory.

The reason the increase in contraception use has coincided with a high abortion rate is due to the fact that women have been using abortion itself as a means of contraception.

Dominic Cataldi

Merchantville, N.J.