I wrote these letters to The Dominion Post on two consecutive days, realising only one if either would make it into print, and realising which it would be.
I sent both to illustrate the way The Dominion Post excludes all but the most innocuous letters on the topic of abortion.
On November 4:
Too right, hospitals are dangerous places
(Speak out for hospital safety). Every year countless
healthy women go into hospital with unborn babies and come out with
post-abortion syndrome, post-traumatic stress disorder, a perforated uterus,
cervical injury, sexual dysfunction, a predisposition to breast cancer, alcohol
and drug dependency and/or child abuse.
Is that promoting ‘what’s right for the
patient’ as advocated by Dr Brian Robinson, senior lecturer at Victoria
University’s Graduate School of Nursing, Midwifery and Health? Why doesn’t Dr
Robinson count these cases as ‘preventable serious adverse events?
On November 5:
Philip Broderick (Hoping to choose when to call it quits)
wants the right to decide when he dies – even if the thought of making that
decision fills him with horror. It’s like he’s standing on a very high ledge,
getting ready to jump. Your story, with its reference to the tragic suicide of
Brittany Maynard, sounds like we’re saying ‘Go ahead, jump!’
But what’s our
natural, instinctive reaction? We yell, ‘No no, don’t jump!’
No prizes for guessing right. The second letter was printed November 8. The first was relegated with countless others on the same subject, to the Dom Post's shredding machine.
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