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Read other letters about this article
It would have been very helpful to know what the consequences have been (if any information is available) of the effective elimination of abortion as a right for Mississippians.
Have the number of back-alley abortions gone up? Are more women dying from botched amateur abortions? Are damaged children being born?
On a more subtle level, the article mentions that Mississippi has the highest number of teen births in the United States. Have those numbers gone up as access to abortions has decreased? If so, by how much, compared to state-wide population growth or shrinkage?
Has the number of children living in poverty gone up? On welfare? Using food stamps? Suffering malnutrition? How about the number of families with children living in poverty, or lacking health care?
We need to know these things.
The loss of abortion rights will have consequences, presumably. Consequences that the government and the religious right will want to keep out of the mainstream media, which is all too likely to cooperate in a tacit conspiracy of silence.
Photographs of dead and bloody cheerleaders don't sell newspapers, after all. And they're a lousy lead-in for a commercial break, as any perky morning-news anchorperson can tell you.
On the other hand, if there ARE no negative results from the loss of abortion rights, we need to know that, too.
Please complete the story, or at the least stay with the issue and provide follow-up information.
