Dear Editor:

In the June 23 issue of Dateline, Janet Krovoza questioned my selection as one of this year's winners of the Distinguished Scholarly Public Service Award. She is, of course, entitled to her opinion but it is misleading for her to suggest that I won this award because I "promote" abortion.

My award letter states that I am being recognized for my "contributions in the area of reproductive health, to both the medical community and the public at large." This is not a trivial, or merely semantic, distinction. While I firmly believe that safe and accessible legal abortion is a necessary component of an adequate reproductive health agenda for women in the United States and elsewhere, it is only one aspect of a larger set of essential services.

For the reproductive health professionals with whom I work, helping women gain the ability to prevent unwanted pregnancies in the first place, and have children if and when they want them — and thus avoid abortions — is a fundamental goal.

The standard of care in abortion clinics associated with Planned Parenthood and the National Abortion Federation (which together provide well over half of all abortions in the U.S.) is to initiate discussion of contraception at the time of a woman's abortion.

Krovoza writes at a moment when many opponents of abortion are increasingly attacking contraception itself — through pharmacists' refusals to offer birth control, slashing funds for family planning services for the poor, etc. Much of my "public service" involves calling attention to these alarming developments.

Carole Joffe

professor of sociology