Although I usually ignore Dr. Stephen Morris’ frequent contributions to your publication, I felt it necessary to respond to his letter published in the Nov. 21, 2014 edition of the New Hyde Park Herald Courier.
In his latest piece, Dr. Morris made the assertion that most Americans shared the values of the Tea Party movement, using he and his cohorts’ love of “individual freedoms” and “less government intrusion” as two prime examples of those shared values.
I found this particular statement spurious, considering Dr. Morris sang the praises of Tennessee’s Amendment 1 earlier in the same letter. He was particularly happy that state lawmakers would have “broader powers to regulate abortion.”
Dr. Morris gave three examples of how he thought the amendment might positively impact the lives of women seeking or considering abortion: a mandated waiting period, mandated counseling and a ban on abortions outside of licensed hospitals and ambulatory surgery centers.
Firstly, I’d like to point out that these are not commonsense rules that only the most partisan, far-left ideologue could oppose, as Dr. Morris claimed. Such regulations, which Tennessee’s legislature now has the power to impose, are specifically designed to discourage and intimidate women who choose to have an abortion.
A waiting period serves no purpose, other than to influence a patient to change her mind. Basically, you would be telling a woman seeking an abortion that she could not be trusted to make that decision immediately and that she needed a “cooling off period” to reconsider – that, in the eyes of the law, she was incompetent.
Although mandated “counseling” may seem innocuous, it is a back door to allow pro-life advocacy into the examination room.
To mandate such “counseling,” even if a woman does not want it, again serves no purpose other than to guilt the patient and put pressure on her to change her mind.
Finally, there has never been any scientific data showing that abortions performed in a doctor’s office or abortion clinic are any less safe than those performed in a hospital or ambulatory surgery center. To suggest otherwise is to insult the intelligence of your readers.
As much as Dr. Morris has railed against the Affordable Care Act and how he (incorrectly) thinks it usurps the rights of doctors and patients to make their own decisions, he’s happy for the government to intrude in this particular medical decision.
That is his hypocrisy and the hypocrisy of the Tea Party movement in general.
When it comes to economic and environmental issues, Dr. Morris thinks the government should be all but absent.
When it comes to social issues, like abortion, marriage equality, drug legalization, etc., he thinks the government should come down with an iron fist in support of his particular world view.
If Dr. Morris believes abortion is wrong and wants to try to regulate it out of existence, he should just admit it.
To pretend he and his friends are champions of personal liberty is ludicrous.
Matthew Zeidman
New Hyde Park
