Ellen Goodman's recent article about partial birth abortions says that behind the attempt to ban the procedure is "a mistrust of women as moral decision-makers". The fact is, truly moral decisions require information that is lacking in the abortion clinics and in the popular media.

      Women in an abortion clinic, stressed about their pregnancy, are not shown detailed pictures or models of the various stages of embryonic and fetal development. They are encouraged to think their child is a blob of tissue and not a human life. They are not told that it is thought that embryos can feel pain as early as 8 weeks. They are not told that the fetus' pain is likely greater than hers because the natural opiate systems for controlling pain are not fully developed while the neuro-circuitry for pain may be greater. They are not told that many women who have abortions later have deep often torturous regrets. These realities might cause the woman to pause or to feel guilty, and our culture discourages guilt feelings just as it discourages accountability in general.

      Capacity for a conscience that convicts us of what's right and wrong appears to be part of what makes us distinctly human. Nevertheless, that conscience can be dulled and even eradicated in a culture like ours that promotes moral relativity. In the case of abortion, proponents of moral relativity would say that the rightness or wrongness of killing an unborn child depends on the mother's feelings about it. The absurdity of moral relativism is clear if we consider murder, rape, or armed robbery-even the proponents of moral relativism would not consider making those activities legal because the perpetrators of the crimes thought their activities were justifiable.

      Ellen Goodman suggests that she has a moral dilemma when she says she wants "abortion to be safe and rare. That's safe and rare. And early." That goal will never be achieved as long as the realities of abortion are kept from the public. Like other cases of popular immorality, abortion is flourishing because of lies. Those lies degrade women since they drastically reduce their capacity for moral decision making.

Annie Bukacek MD