Elliott Epstein’s Rearview Mirror column (“Declining birth rates are unhealthy for hospitals and society,” May 22), was statistically instructive about this country’s declining birth rate, and the need to improve our immigration laws so jobs can be filled and our economy expanded.

However, I found it troubling that Mr. Epstein used the common pro-choice misapprehension that life somehow miraculously begins at birth, rather than at conception, when he suggested that reversing Roe v. Wade would not solve our ever-declining birth rate.

I quote, “For those who think the Supreme Court’s imminent overturn of Roe v. Wade and the expected wave of red-state anti-abortion laws will solve the problem by bringing more fetuses to life, think again.”

If the detection of a human heartbeat is possible just a few weeks after conception, clearly that heart does not typically need a “crash cart” delivering so many jolting joules of electricity at birth to bring it to life, making it suddenly human. In fact, we all know that heart monitors are constantly checking the mother’s and baby’s heart rates during the birthing process to detect problems that might lead to the death of mother or baby, human and alive as both of them are.

People may disagree about right-to-life and choice matters, but let’s not deny basic human biology and physiology while doing it.

Mark Wood, Poland