In response to Rachel Gordon’s letter about the ROE Act (May 9), may I make a few points.
First “pregnant people” don’t “receive a fatal fetal diagnosis,” fetuses do. A viable fetus is a person under Massachusetts law, and it is the fetus’s rights that are at issue.
The ROE Act would authorize the doctor who intends to perform an abortion to decide whether the child suffers from a “lethal anomaly,” without specifying any criteria. It would not require that the doctor have any expertise in pediatric medicine or consider options for testing or treatment. It would not permit the father or any advocate for the child’s interests to intervene.
Moreover, the ROE Act makes clear that “lethal anomaly” includes conditions that are compatible with sustained survival. A recent survey of medical literature concluded, “There is no agreement on the probability of death that would justify describing a [congenital] condition as lethal.” In effect, the ROE Act would legalize involuntary euthanasia without any safeguards whatever.
Second, like most proponents of the ROE Act, Rachel Gordon doesn’t mention its most radical provision: It would permit a viable fetus to be killed because the doctor who intends to perform the abortion believes its survival would impair the mother’s mental health. That is murder under current law, and even if the child’s rights didn’t matter, there is no medical evidence on the basis of which a psychiatrist, much less an obstetrician, can predict the effect of having a child on the mother’s mental health.
Finally, in regard to minors having to “navigate the court system,” Planned Parenthood handles this at no cost to the minor. In any event, this has nothing to do with the provisions relating to late-term abortions and they shouldn’t be in the same bill.
John Harrington
Shelburne