Science

Letter: Abortion transcends statistics as an issue for voters – Times Union

In his letter to the editor (“In numbers, abortion affects few Americans,” Oct. 23), statistics Professor Douglas Lonnstrom cites the relatively low percentage of actual abortions, within the universe of American voters, as the reason “that abortion is nowhere near a major issue like inflation, crime, border and energy.” I’ll give him credit that other major issues exist, but that’s it.

In 1967, a restraining order preventing publication of the “Pentagon Papers” was issued to the New York Times. Using Lonnstrom’s logic, that couldn’t possibly be of any concern to me, because I was neither the publisher of a newspaper nor the owner of one. So the issues of freedom of speech, freedom of the press, prior restraint, and the war in Vietnam itself must’ve been “nowhere near a major issue” for me. Never mind that I was attending college at the time and subject to the military draft (which I circumvented, in 1968, by enlisting in the Army).

Similarly, perhaps I should not be concerned with minority voting rights, gay marriage laws, and any number of other, apparently non-major, issues, if I do not personally find myself a member of all such classes. And, more specifically and more locally, should I care about PFAs in the water supply in Hoosick Falls or toxic air around the Norlite plant in Cohoes? Nah, the air around my house is okay (I think), my water is uncontaminated, and I’m a few hundred feet above sea level, so environmental concerns can’t be a “major” issue for me.

Let’s get back to the issue at hand. The Pew Research Center notes: “In our most recent survey, 61 percent of U.S. adults say abortion should be legal all or most of the time, while 37 percent say it should be illegal all or most of the time.” That’s the point. The issues here include bodily autonomy, who makes health care decisions for whom, access to health care, religious influence in legislation, and on and on. And many of us consider those – yes – major issues.

I, for one, am among those many, my personal inability to have an abortion notwithstanding. And I suggest that  Lonnstrom, however adroitly he may teach statistics, avail himself to some courses – he can probably audit them without paying tuition – in the political science, psychology, sociology, and history departments, to broaden his view of the world.

Bill Pollack

Niskayuna