The problem that didn't go away

Today, April 28, is an anniversary we should remember.

"Daisy" Roe was a 32-year-old systems analyst for a defense contractor. Daisy knew that abortion was legal and readily available. She had an appointment to abort her second-trimester pregnancy scheduled for April 30, 1990, at a local abortion clinic.

But for some reason, Daisy didn't wait for her appointment. On April 28, she allowed her boyfriend to insert a plastic tube into her uterus in a home-abortion attempt. Daisy died of complications of that abortion.

The abortion lobby wants you to believe that "coathanger abortions" were common prior to legalization, and that they vanished miraculously after Roe vs. Wade. Not true. And women continue to die, not only of legal abortions, but from amateur and self-induced abortions, because the myths prevent us from really examining what drives women to take such desperate risks. And without understanding why they do it, we can't come up with a prevention strategy. We can't even identify at-risk women. And women like Daisy, and like Laura France and Kris Humphrey will continue to die needlessly.