Abused Women May Kill for Their Lives

In the front-page article "Learning to Unclench Their Fists," June 1, it states that while 1,531 women in the United States were killed by their husbands or boyfriends in 1993, 591 men were killed by their partners in the same year. These statistics would lead readers to believe that women can be just as violent as men, right?

According to the Sept./Oct. 1994 Ms. Magazine, nearly half of the women on death row in 1993 were there for the murder of an abusive partner. It is safe to assume, therefore, that a similar percentage of the women murderers cited in the article were merely trying to protect themselves from further harm. It disturbs me that these women, who were most likely trying to save their own lives, were lumped together with men who killed for power and control.