W-b Woman Pushes Aside Fears 
Peggy Mcgraw, Who Has Been Blind Since Birth, Moved Into Her Own Apartment 
Recently After 40 Years Of Living With Her Parents

Alvin Thomas

By JOE HEALEY; Times Leader Staff Writer
 Sunday, November 22, 1998 &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Page: 1A 





WILKES-BARRE- Karen Ptaschnik was minutes away from stopping the
"fluttering" of the fetus inside her when she changed her mind. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 "I was about to walk into the office and I said to myself, `I can't go
through with this,' " she said. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Ptaschnik, an inmate at the Luzerne County Correctional Facility, is 13
weeks pregnant and fought county officials to allow her to get an abortion. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 She won a federal court order Friday to force the county to take her to the
Allentown Women's Center for the procedure. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 She got there on Saturday. She had the blood work done. She completed the
urine test. She spoke to a counselor. She was prepped for surgery. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 And then she called the whole thing off. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 "If I didn't feel movement, I would have had the abortion," she said from
the Luzerne County Correctional Facility on Saturday night. "Once I felt
movement, it became a lot more emotional." &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 She described the movement she felt as "fluttering, not quite kicking." &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 Ptaschnik, 30, of Hazleton, said there were two reasons she called off the
abortion. In addition to the movement she felt, she said someone approached
one of her children at school about the abortion issue. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 "Your mommy is going to kill her baby," the child said. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 "That kept going through my head," Ptaschnik said. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 Ptaschnik is serving a 15-month sentence for delivery of a controlled
substance and drunken driving. She started serving the sentence in April and
will be in prison when the baby is expected to be delivered. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 She originally turned down adoption offers. Now she wants counseling to
help her to decide what to do with the baby, which is due May 22. She said she
might keep it, and would be able to see it for several hours each week when
she goes home as part of her work-release program. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 Ptaschnik wouldn't have been put in this dilemma if the county had let her
have the abortion when she first asked for it six weeks ago, she said. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 "I was ignored by everyone until Tuesday morning," she said. "They kept
giving me the runaround, saying it couldn't be done. It's my right as a woman
to make my own decisions about my body." &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 And U.S. District Judge Edwin M. Kosik agreed. Ptaschnik, aided by lawyers
from the Philadelphia-based Women's Law Project and the Center for
Reproductive Law and Policy in New York, won in Kosik's federal court in
Scranton the right to have to procedure. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 Even though Luzerne County officials fought Ptaschnik, they aren't pleased
she changed her mind. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 Commissioner Tom Makowski said the commissioners are "a little upset" at
footing the bill for Ptaschnik's transportation to and from the Allentown
facility and the legal expenses incurred. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 "We spent taxpayers' dollars for this," Makowski said. He did not know how
much was spent. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 However, Makowski said he is pleased Ptaschnik considered other
alternatives and is choosing to have the child. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 "We don't feel that procedure is a medical emergency or necessity," he
said. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 Ptaschnik said she planned on paying for the abortion herself. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 Prison officials sent her to have a sonogram, thinking she might change her
mind about the abortion, she said. At one point, the county did offer
counseling, she said, but it was by Catholic Social Services. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 "I wanted an unbiased counselor," she said. "That organization has a
pro-life agenda." &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 Betty Caffrey, director of the Crisis Pregnancy Center in Wilkes-Barre, was
relieved when she heard the news. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 "We're glad that she'll have her baby." &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 But Caffrey was puzzled why no one questioned Kosik's decision. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 "The fact is she is serving a prison sentence," Caffrey said. "No one
questioned the judge's decision and the constitutionality of the whole
matter." &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 After word got out of Ptaschnik's story, offers from the Diocese of
Scranton poured in, including money, assistance in adoption and supplies. She
was never approached by the diocese about aid, only reading about the offers
in the newspapers, she said. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 Ptaschnik didn't want it. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 Although she is glad to have won the right to have the abortion, Ptaschnik
s

`flutter' Halts Abortion Plans, Inmate Says