I want to thank the zoning board for their patience. This has been a long afternoon, and I appreciate the opportunity you have provided for the public to speak--particularly when this issue has already been settled. This is a nonissue. We should not be here.

When Roe vs. Wade became a reality, I wondered what we had done because abortion was abhorrent to me. This was a very thorny issue for me. But after a few years, statistics clearly showed that the birth rate did not decline significantly, and one statistic plummeted to near zero-the deaths of women who had abortions. Many women in my generation-I'm 65-died or were rendered infertile because of botched abortions. If women want children, they will have them. If they don't, they will have an abortion, regardless of the legality.

I have also found an article by Dr. Glen Stassen who is the Lewis B. Smedes Professor of Christian Ethics at Fuller Theological Seminary, and the co-author of Kingdom Ethics: Following Jesus in Contemporary Context, Christianity Today's book of the Year in theology or ethics. Dr. Stassen is avidly pro life. When his wife was in the first trimester of her pregnancy, she developed rubella; they decided to have the child. I have taught children whose mothers had rubella during pregnancy, and these children are seriously handicapped.

Dr. Stassen makes clear that their decision was a personal one, and that they could never have an abortion. Nevertheless he is pro-choice because of the statistics he has unearthed. Since 2000, abortions have increased in the United States. In the year 2002, there were 52,000 more abortions than in the 1990's. Dr. Stassen feels this is due to our poor economy, and gives three economic reasons for this trend.
1. Two thirds of women who abort say they cannot afford a child. Unemployment rates have increased, average real incomes decreased, and the minimum wage has not been raised to match inflation. These mothers cannot afford anther mouth to feed.
2. Men who are jobless usually don't marry, and these women don't have a reliable mate to help them.
3. Women worry about health care for themselves and their children. There are 5.2 million more people with no health insurance since President Bush, and women of childbearing age are overrepresented in this group.

When I saw so many people here today, I was a bit angry. Why isn't all this energy used to get health care for our young people, to increase job opportunities for our young adults, and to raise the minimum wage. If we want to reduce abortions, we must attend to the reasons for abortions, and many of them are economic. Why aren't we standing on our representatives' door steps demanding these things for our youth? That's where we should be, and this meeting should never have been held.

Patty Pullen (electronic mail, November 10, 2004)