By Sebastian R. Fama
In an effort to win support for legalized abortion, its advocates will point to the hard cases. The idea is that anyone who would deny an abortion to a woman in difficult circumstances is cruel and uncaring. But pro-lifers understand that if you care about someone you tell them the truth.
The long-term effects of abortion on women are well documented and can be attested to by the women themselves. Long-term effects can include bladder injuries, bowel injuries, severe rapid bleeding, sterility, and a negative effect on future pregnancies. It can also have a profoundly negative effect on a woman’s mental health, regardless of how the baby was conceived.
The effects on the baby are devastating as well. All abortions result in a dead baby, but most procedures involve tortuous pain. In an article written for The Federalist dealing with fetal pain, Robin Pierucci, a neonatologist, wrote the following: “In the neonatal intensive care unit, I see premature babies at the edge of viability (23–24 weeks’ gestation) react to painful or uncomfortable procedures every day. For example, when you poke them for blood work, the babies wrinkle up their faces, kick their feet, clench their hands into tiny fists, curl their toes, arch their backs and try to wriggle away, or smack at the offending person.”1
Fetal pain can be experienced even earlier, as noted in an article entitled “Fetal Pain Is a Reason to End Abortion.” The author quoted an abortionist who described a preborn baby fighting for his life during a saline injection. According to the abortionist: “All of a sudden one noticed that at the time of the saline infusion there was a lot of activity in the uterus. . . . That’s obviously the fetus being distressed by swallowing the concentrated salt solution and kicking violently and that’s, to all intents and purposes, the death trauma.”2
Can such a brutal act ever be justified?
To read the remainder of this article, visit the Celebrate Life Magazine website at clmagazine.org/topic/abortion/hard-cases-and-abortion.