Jacqueline Flood (BDN, Oct. 4) can stop worrying about the abortion procedure she described in her letter. That procedure, known as “intact dilation and extraction,” has been banned in Maine for 20 years. In fact, all post-viability abortions are banned in Maine under MRSA 22 Sec. 1598, Subsec. 1. Yes, an exception is permitted under the law when necessary to preserve the life or health of the mother, but that exception has been used only twice, in all of Maine, over the past 14 years.

It’s therefore fair to ask what exactly will we be voting on when we pause at Question No. 1 on the Nov. 2 referendum ballot. What is the real purpose of that referendum question (a citizens’ initiative)? And, most important, why is the actual wording of the law proposed by that initiated referendum so different from the TV ads and letters to editors from the referendums’s sponsors?

Specifically, if the sponsors of that citizens’ initiative really want to ban only post-viability or late-term abortions, why doesn’t their proposed law use the terms “post-viability” and “intact dilation and extraction?” Why did they use instead the term “partial birth abortion,” a term which has neither a medical nor legal meaning? Who says it is has no such meaning? Courts in 19 other states have said so in their decisions overriding laws similar to that proposed by Question 1. In six of those states the law that was overruled or enjoined by the courts had the wording identical to the one proposed in Maine.

Finding it hard to believe that the sponsors of Question No. 1 really don’t know about the current Maine law, I have to conclude that their purpose is not what their ads and letters claim. Sadly, I conclude that they are deliberately trying to deceive me and all other Maine voters. Let’s show them that scam won’t work in Maine by voting “No” on Question No. 1. Ethel M. Schwalbe Steuben