Genre: Opinion/Argumentation

Mother's Life at Risk With advances in modern medicine there are almost no conditions in pregnancy and childbirth that require abortion to save the mother's life. The exceptions are mainly tubal pregnancy and uterine cancer. Abortion advocates claim that every pregnancy threatens a woman's life. The person determining "mental health" is a gynaecologist not a psychiatrist. Young teenage mothers have the least complications in childbirth. The principle of 'double effect' means the intention is to save the woman's life, not deliberately to kill the foetus. An example of 'double effect' is a tubal pregnancy which is invariably fatal to the mother. The leading cause of death during pregnancy is murder. Alan Guttmacher said in his book " Abortion Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow " The Case for Legalized Abortion Now which was published in 1967: "Today it is possible for almost any patient to be brought through pregnancy alive, unless she suffers from a fatal disease such as cancer or leukemia, and if so, abortion would be unlikely to prolong, much less save the life" Alan Guttmacher, who succeeded Margaret Sanger as head of Planned Parenthood, probably did more to spread abortion on demand throughout the world than any other individual. Considerable advances have been made in medicine since he made that statement. Abortion activists have successfully used the same two step strategy to legalise abortion in countries around the world. First is the campaign to have abortion legal in the "hard" cases of incest and abortion. An example is where a very young teenage girl, say 13-years old, is pregnant as a result of rape or incest. The incidence of pregnancy resulting from rape or incest is around 1 percent. In many cases abortion is performed against the wishes of the girl, and is in fact used to cover-up the crime. The next step in the campaign is to expand the exceptions for abortion to include cases of "severe foetal abnormality" and to "save the life of the mother," which is then expanded to "when the physical or mental health of the mother is at risk." This last definition is taken by abortionists to mean abortion on demand and 98-99 percent of all abortions for performed for 'mental health' reasons. 98-99% of all abortions are performed for 'mental health' reasons. Stretching the Definition Lise Fortier, an abortionist, said at the 1980 national convention of the National Abortion Federation: "Each and every pregnancy threatens a woman's life. From a strict medical viewpoint, every pregnancy should be aborted." This is a common attitude among abortionists and advocates of abortion. Many doctors, believing that abortion is safer than childbirth, consider any pregnancy as life-threatening and use that as justification for abortion. Abortionist David Zbaraz has actually claimed that all first-trimester and most second-trimester abortions are medically necessary since, as he alleges, they are safer than childbirth. Minnesota abortionist Jane Hodgson stated her case in much simpler and more direct terms: "A medically necessary abortion is any abortion a woman asks for." On the website safemotherhood.org, is an article entitled Every Pregnancy faces Risks, prepared by International Planned Parenthood Federation among others. The opening sentence states: " Every time a woman is pregnant - which happens an estimated 200 million times every year around the world - she risks a sudden and unpredictable complication that could result in her death or injury, and the death or injury of her infant." Dr. Jasper Williams, a former president of the National Medical Association, noted that, in 23 years of practice, he knew of only two women who had actually died in childbirth from previously undiagnosed causes; one of a pulmonary embolism and the other from an amniotic fluid embolism. It is his opinion that abortionists will expand even minor conditions (such as mild varicose veins) into "threats to the woman's life." Widespread exploitation of the "mental health" clause is the same the world over. Mental Health Widespread exploitation of the "mental health" clause in abortion laws is the same the world over. The person who makes a determination of mental problems is not a psychiatrist but the abortionist Professor Myre Sim, a lecturer in Psychiatry at Birmingham University, recognized that abortionists are certainly not qualified to make psychiatric evaluations; "I was able to demonstrate successfully that psychiatry was competent to deal with all the psychiatric hazards of pregnancy, and that the day that a psychiatrist required a gynaecologist to treat his patients has not arrived." Dr Sim studied 213 patients with puerperal psychosis and stated baldly: "There are no psychiatric grounds for the termination of pregnancy." (Sim, M (1963). Abortion and the psychiatrist. Brit. Med. J., July 2O, 145-148) Puerperal psychosis, in almost all cases, is a mood disorder accompanied by features such as loss of contact with reality, hallucinations, severe thought disturbance, and abnormal behaviour. Dr Julia Faed, a clinical psychologist of Dunedin New Zealand, gave expert evidence in the Christchurch High Court in 1992 that reactive depression was a contra-indication for abortion (abortion is not recommended where there is depression). She stated that the correct treatment for reactive depression was counselling or, if necessary, medication, and for severe reactive depression hospitalisation. Read more here. There is no evidence that a continued unwanted pregnancy will endanger the mother's mental health. Dr. Carlos del Campose, who surveyed literature on the subject of children born to women refused abortion for various reasons concluded: "The literature shows a generally comparable outcome of pregnancy, delivery and puerperium [the period immediately following childbirth] between women who were denied abortion and controls. "No evidence that a continued unwanted pregnancy will endanger the mother's mental health; good acceptance of the infant by the mother, especially if she has the father's support; and minimal to moderate psychosocial disadvantages for the child." " There is now general agreement that pregnancy does not alter the natural history of disease, so that, provided a woman survives the immediate challenge, neither her health nor her life-expectancy is permanently changed." Abortion advocates believe that extreme youth is a reason for abortion on the grounds that childbirth would endanger the life of the girl. Some even go as far as saying that abortion should be mandatory for all girls 14 and under. A study found that teenaged girls had the least complications from childbirth of any age group of childbearing women. Despite this, research has shown that pregnancy and childbirth is safer for young girls than for older women.The most comprehensive study every performed on the physical and mental effects of childbirth on teenagers found that teenaged girls had the least complications from childbirth of any age group of childbearing women. The four-year study conducted by the National Institute of Child Health Development (NICHD) and the University of Pennsylvania was based upon the case histories of 9,000 women who had given birth in a Copenhagen hospital. Chief researcher Dr. Brian Sutton-Smith stated that "We have found that teen-age mothers, given proper care, have the least complications in childbirth. The younger the mother, the better the birth." (The New York Times, April 24, 1979) Dr. Sutton-Smith also reviewed other studies that came to different conclusions, and stated that these "obscured the findings" by deliberately including a large proportion of teenagers living in deep poverty and comparing them to older, more affluent women. Any treatment administered to save a woman's life that also results in the death of a preborn child is not a true abortion. The Principle of the "Double Effect" The principle of the "double effect means that any treatment administered to save a woman's life that also results in the death of a preborn child is not a true abortion, since the primary purpose of the treatment was to save a life not take it. Even if the death of the baby is a foregone conclusion, such an action is not classifiable as an abortion. Some of the treatments that may indirectly kill a preborn child include certain cancer treatments; hysterectomy (removal) of a cancerous or severely traumatized uterus; and salpingectomy (the removal of a Fallopian tube). It is possible that the surgeon could delay treatment of the mother until the foetus reaches a viable stage of development. In this way it could be possible to save the life of both the mother and the baby. Ectopic Pregnancy The most common application of the "double effect" occurs in the case of a ectopic (tubal) pregnancy when the embryo implants in the Fallopian tube, instead of completing its journey to the uterus. Such implantation is inevitably fatal to the woman if her pregnancy progresses too far. It is quite possible for a baby to implant virtually anywhere in the mother's abdominal cavity and survive. One mother gave birth to a perfectly healthy baby boy who had somehow migrated out of a rupture in the uterus and had implanted in the vicinity of her stomach. The surgical procedure used to remedy this situation is fairly simple to describe. The surgeon first must use ultrasonography to diagnose the unruptured tubal pregnancy. He then inserts a laparoscope (small camera with light) through an incision in the abdominal wall and locates the distended fallopian tube. He then laterally incises the tube and suctions out the embryo. Although legally and medically, this procedure is the same as a typical suction abortion, it is different in several critical ways. Although legally and medically, this procedure is the same as a typical suction abortion, it is different in several critical ways. In the majority of cases, the pregnancy is wanted and the intent of the surgical procedure is to save life. In the future, doctors hope to be able to remove the embryo intact and transfer it to the uterus, where it will be successfully implanted. See here for a list of Conditions that do not require abortion. Many New or Expectant Mothers Die Violent Deaths Five years ago in Maryland, state health researchers Isabelle Horon and Diana Cheng set out to study maternal deaths, using sophisticated methods to spot dozens of overlooked cases in their state. They assumed they would find more deaths from medical complications than the state's statistics showed. The last thing they expected was murder. A Washington Post article on December 19, 2004 reported the findings of a year-long investigation of death-record data in states across the country documents the killings of 1,367 pregnant women and new mothers since 1990. They believe this is only part of the national toll, because no reliable system is in place to track such cases. The Post quoted Pat Brown, a criminal profiler in Minneapolis, on December 19: "If the woman doesn't want the baby, she can get an abortion. If the guy doesn't want it, he can't do a damn thing about it. He is stuck with a child for the rest of his life, he is stuck with child support for the rest of his life, and he's stuck with that woman for the rest of his life. If she goes away, the problem goes away." Crime expert Louis Mizell said, "When husbands or boyfriends attack pregnant partners, it usually has to do with an unwillingness to deal with fatherhood, marriage, child support or public scandal." In conclusion Even before the legalisation of abortion around the world, there were very few instances where a woman could not obtain an abortion in order to save her life. To use the argument that abortion is safer than childbirth because every pregnancy puts the mother's life at risk, is seen by those opposed to abortion as a smokescreen, especially when advances in medicine are elimating, or at least controlling, most of the conditions that could have resulted in the death of a pregnant woman.