Given the dubious possibility that only 3 percent of Planned Parenthood's services are abortion-related, as Leonard Pitts claims ("Lying in defense of extremist views is no virtue," April 17), it does nothing to alter the fact that over 1 million abortions are performed annually in the U.S. and that Planned Parenthood is the country's leading abortion provider.

By contrast, the nation's homicides average about 18,000 per year, somewhere around 1 percent of the number of fetal deaths attributed to abortion. So if we're talking life and death statistics, it's not off the mark to say that a pregnant woman's womb may now be the most dangerous place in America.

And if Mr. Pitts thinks this is another "extremist view," I suggest he ponder the stats.

Andrew Todaro, Baltimore