Making abortions expensive and relatively inaccessible makes no sense. It doesn't stop abortions - it only pomotes unsafe, and illegal backstreet procedures that can result in bacteremia and septic shock: a condition caused by baterica overwhelming the blood stream that can often prove fatal. Illegal abortions can cause hemorrage, sterility or punctured uterus. Desperate women will try anything to end an unwanted pregnancy.

I was an office nurse to three family practitioners in New Jersey. It was long before Roe v. Wade. The three men all had phone numbers of an M.D. who preformed abortions. When I asked one doctor why, he answered: "If there is a doctor in the family, he can order a D and C. Or if the woman is wealthy, she can arrange a trip to a place that has legal abortions. But many women don't have those options."

While working as an office nurse, a husband brought his wife into see the doctor. The woman was a pale shade of green and doubled over in pain. The distraught man volunteered, "she operated on herself with coat hanger." My brother's finance died one day before her 30th birthday. Her death was due to septic shock caused by an illegal abortion. The tragedy happend three months before Roe v. Wade became the law of the land.

Prominent athletes are in the news for murdering their pregnant girlfriends. DNA is an accepted way to prove paternity. Don't pregnanty women deserve the right to a safe legal abortion? Pregnany women who fear the father of their baby might kill them.

I spoke to the Administrator of the Richmond Medical Center for Women. She said that the clinic was founded in 1973 by two men, a Presbyterian Minister and an OB-GYN. In her opinion, TRAP doesn't make any sense -- for example, halls wide enough to allow two strechers to be wheeled side by side. "Other medical procedures are done in offices..endoscopies and many medical procedures on anesthetized paitents are perfomed in offices." She said "There are perhaps 18 abortion clinics in the satte of Virignia and 2 have closed since TRAP went into effect."

Richmond Medical Center for Women offers free prenancy tests, morning after pill, that is effective for nine days after intercourse. First and second term abortions are performed in a hospital. That location wouldn't be necessary if TRAP was reversed. 

Please reverse TRAP and enable clinics to perform abortions in a safe, medical enviroment. 

Thank you for considering my concerns, 

Ms. Sidney C. White, Retired R.N.