ABORTION FLAP
I am confused by arguments in the debate about sex-selective abortions ("Sex-selective abortion comes to Canada" Vol 4, No 15, Sept 15, 2007). Political correctness dictates that a woman's body is her own to do with as she pleases. Therefore, abortion is a woman's own personal decision not to be interfered with by hospital abortion boards, lawmakers, fathers or other outsiders. How is a woman's choice of abortion for a politically incorrect reason an exception? What ethics board gets to decide what is a correct reason for abortion? 

A fetus does not have rights and is not a person. Therefore a woman's decision to choose abortion is hers alone. If this is true, how can you have sexual discrimination against something that has no legal rights or claim to personhood? If the pro-abortion arguments are correct, then society has no business not telling a woman the sex of her child because of what she might do. On the other hand if the fetus is to some degree a person with some degree of rights for society to protect, we then have something to debate about.

Dr Scot Lappa, Edmonton, AB

SAY SORRY, DOC
Re your article "This hurts me nearly as much as it hurts you" (Vol 4, No 15, Sept 15, 2007) about physicians who live with stress and guilt after a medical error: My mother was set on fire during surgery.  All the money in the world could not fix what happened to her. Telling my mother sorry would have meant more.

Cathy Lake, Boonsboro, MD, www.surgicalfire.org