One of the best damn letters to the editor I may have ever read.

A response to this post, though it likely won't ever be printed or put online.

Good day, Editors - I do not live in the White Plains area, but I visited Tarrytown many years ago. I came across an article by Jane Matluck regarding abortion and would dearly love a chance to respond. I realize that you want local reader's reactions...however, in this day an age of the internet, everyone is a local reader. If you would be so kind as to at least read my response, and prayerfully print it I would be grateful. Thank you -

The column by Jane Matluck saying that mental illness is fake and deceiving from women who have experienced abortion is an interesting take on women's health issues.

She writes, in part, "Years of evidence from women who have had abortions shows that relief is the most common emotional response after an abortion in the first trimester; nearly 90 percent of all abortions occur during the first trimester of pregnancy."

Having had an abortion, I agree with the first part of her statement - that there may be relief after the surgery. However, that is mainly due to the fact that abortion is not a surgery that anyone celebrates. It is a surgery that is clouded in silence. It is painful and horrible and once it is over, one may find relief, no matter how temporarily.

There are, however, many women who experience the loss of their baby immediately and sob uncontrollably in the recovery room.

I had my abortion during at the beginning of my fourth month of being pregnant. I was told by my mother, who took me to have the abortion that the abortion was for my good. The very violent death of my child by saline injected into my womb was painful and long.

Why was the abortion for my good? Did I have a health issue? Did the baby have a health issue? No to both of those questions. The abortion was good for me because a continuation of my pregnancy would have resulted in the birth of another human being! And, that human being would be a 'problem' for my parents as I was unwed and just eighteen years of age, ergo, the abortion was good for me.

I believed what my mother told me - that is until I was visiting Tarrytown and went into New York City during my stay. There I saw fetal models and I realized that the baby at four months of gestation looked exactly like a baby outside of the womb, only smaller.

That is when my fake and deceptive mental illness really kicked into high gear; when I saw that the 'mass of tissue" that planned parenthood is so fond of calling human life, was actually a baby!

No more relief - only an attempt now to block out the horror of what had happened to the baby who had resided within my womb.

I tried talking to counselors about the abortion and I was patted on the head and told that there was nothing wrong with abortion. So - if there was nothing wrong with abortion, why did I have suicidal thoughts? Why was I unstable? Why did I abuse alcohol and drugs? Why did I feel like I was not worthy of a good relationship?

It was not until I met other post abortive women and found that many of our post abortion lives were racked with the same problems that I realized I was not alone.

I am not mentally ill - but those who work for the advancement of abortion are going to tell you that I, and millions of other women like myself are, so that they can further their agenda of selling abortions to women who like me, find that they are either coerced or feel they have no choice BUT to kill their innocent child.

No, Jane Matluck, I never wanted this - I never wanted to be a mother of a dead child and certainly did not want one of my 'sisters' to deny that there is such a thing as post abortive trauma. As a woman who is on the board of Planned Parenthood, you have an agenda and you are using it at a cost to others like myself who are patted on the head and told we are mentally ill and it has nothing to do with abortion.

So much for caring about women's health issues, Jane.

By our own longtime good friend, Lee Anne.