To the editor:

Cal Thomas uses the trial of Dr. Kermit Gosnell to condemn abortion. The Gosnell case is a better example of back-alley abortions in the 1950s, when the procedure was illegal and women often died.

In those days, if your daddy repeatedly raped you, you didn't tell because that would disgrace your family. Instead, you lived with the shame for the rest of your life. If Daddy got you pregnant, you were shipped off to a "distant aunt" for the duration, and then the child was raised as your brother or sister.

A really strong mother might chase Daddy out of the house with a butcher knife (as happened in one family), whereupon he would move on to another household with another little girl.

In the '50s, we lived near a hospital where the nurses (all female) lived in a dorm. So many were raped on their way back to the dorm at night that the interns (all male, of course) were drafted to escort them home. Women were restricted to certain, lower-paid jobs -- nurse, schoolteacher, secretary.

If you were a single mom actually doing the same job as a man, you were paid half what the man was paid because "men have families to support." If you had brothers, they went to college. You didn't; you were just going to get married and have babies.

Wealthy and strong women went anyway. The "psychedelic '60s" were wild, but they started a movement that has put an end to a lot of nonsense.

Dirty daddies (and teachers, and coaches, and priests) are now unmasked. Civil rights are for everyone. More women go to college than men, and their sports are funded. The job market is open for both genders.

Deanna Ball