Response: Re: First Trimester Procedural Abortion in Family Medicine

To the Editor: We appreciate the interest of Dr. Uretsky¹ in abortion and apologize for the error in the abstract. The correct proportion of women having an abortion is as stated in the first paragraph of the article²: “at least one-third of women will have an abortion.” However, he incorrectly states that the Guttmacher references New York data. In fact, the data cited in the Guttmacher reference³ are derived from the 2002 National Survey of Family Growth and were combined with birth, abortion, and population data from federal, state, and nongovernmental sources to arrive at the estimates. No attempt has been made to inflate the figures regarding abortion; rather, a careful reading of the article demonstrates the widespread prevalence of abortion and the need for family doctors to provide this service to their patients.