Regarding Chris Flynn's July 12 letter commenting on mine of July 7 in which I stated that a rigorous and detailed study on abortion worldwide and country by country showed that between 1948 and 2015 over 39 million Japanese babies had been aborted. My point was simply that had those abortions not taken place and those babies grown up, wouldn't there now be a lot more younger people to help support the aging population and all the problems it's posing?

If you also account for the millions of girls aborted over that time who would have grown up, gotten married and had babies, the number of younger people would obviously be much, much greater than 39 million.

Chris didn't really address that point; that is, based on these well-researched facts, wouldn't Japan be far better off today and not have the problems it's facing due to it's aging population?

I'm sorry if I sounded "sermon-like." It wasn't my intention.

ROBERT AUSTENFELD

KOBE

The opinions expressed in this letter to the editor are the writer's own and do not necessarily reflect the policies of The Japan Times.