A couple of recent studies that reflect negatively on abortion have come to our attention. We in turn want to make you are aware of them—not because they are shocking, but rather because the secular “news” media has once again found it not in their best pro-death interest to report them objectively. For the most part, there has been no mention of them.
The first deals with the Congressional briefing hosted by Congressman Chris Smith this past week, a well-known advocate for human rights, truth and life. The purpose of the Smith briefing was to discuss the global decline in maternal death rates and the reasons why improved prenatal care, rather than abortion, holds the key to continued success in this area.
During the briefing, Dr. Donna Harrison, president of the American Association of Pro-life Obstetricians and Gynecologists (AAPLOG), focused attention on a recent study published in the British medical journal, Lancet, entitled “Maternal mortality for 181 countries, 1980—2008: a systematic analysis of progress towards Millennium Development Goal 5.” It credits these four reasons for the improvement in maternal health: declining pregnancy rates in some countries, higher per capita income, higher education rates for women and the increasing availability of basic medical care including “skilled birth attendants.”
As Dr. Harrison explained, the Lancet report “never mentioned legal abortion as a factor in bringing down maternal mortality ratios. In fact, pro-life nations such as Poland, Malta and Ireland had just as low or even lower ratios of maternal mortality than the United States, Norway, and Canada, which all have very liberal abortion laws.”
Harrison pointed out that induced abortion actually puts women in danger of bleeding/hemorrhage, infection, and damage to reproductive organs, especially if not all the pieces of the destroyed unborn child are completely evacuated. The risks are even greater for medical abortion, Harrison said, highlighting a study published in the journal Obstetrics and Gynecology, which found that women having a medical abortion had an eightfold risk of bleeding, fivefold risk of incomplete abortion, and twofold risk of (re)evacuation than surgical abortion. The study concluded that medical abortion was likely “to result in an elevated incidence of overall morbidity related to termination of pregnancy.
While this comes as no surprise to anyone involved in the pro-life apostolate, it is not us who need to hear these facts, but rather the general public who is still being spoon-fed the lie that abortion is “safe and legal” and childbirth can be deadly for the mother. So where is the media, you might ask?
Well, as the New York Times reports:
[S]ome advocates for women’s health tried to pressure The Lancet into delaying publication of the new findings, fearing that good news would detract from the urgency of their cause, Dr. Horton said in a telephone interview.
“I think this is one of those instances when science and advocacy can conflict,” he said.
Dr. Horton said the advocates, whom he declined to name, wanted the new information held and released only after certain meetings about maternal and child health had already taken place.
He said the meetings included one at the United Nations this week, and another to be held in Washington in June, where advocates hope to win support for more foreign aid for maternal health from Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. Other meetings of concern to the advocates are the Pacific Health Summit in June, and the United Nations General Assembly meeting in December.
“People who have spent many years committed to the issue of maternal health were understandably worried that these figures could divert attention from an issue that they care passionately about,” Dr. Horton said. “But my feeling is that they are misguided in their view that this would be damaging. My view is that actually these numbers help their cause, not hinder it.”
All I can say to that is, Dr. Horton, GIVE ME A BREAK! Who do you think you are kidding? Or are you so naïve you do not understand that those who equate maternal health with killing preborn children before birth don’t want any kind of good news being touted in the media that will undermine their heinous agenda.
If it were truly the case, that advocates for maternal health were committed to protecting expectant mothers and their babies from dreadful disease, difficulties, birth anomalies and death, they would be staunch advocates for both patients and never recommend killing as a healthy response! However, as we know, such is not the case here or in any of the developing nations where the United States has been funding the culture of death for so many years.
Further, these very same advocates, if they were honestly committed to women and children, would have been first in line with the news that researchers at the University of Manitoba have shown a distinct link between abortion and mental illness including thoughts of suicide:
The researchers, from the departments of psychology and psychiatry, as well as obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive sciences, found that abortion was associated with mood disorders, anxiety disorders, substance abuse and suicide attempts.
They report that depression and drug dependence followed abortion in about half of the women studied. Additionally, women with a household income of $75,000 or more were more likely to report an abortion than those with household incomes under $25,000.
They used data from the National Institute of Mental Health and the National Institute of Drug Abuse to look for correlations between a number of factors, including abortion, anxiety, substance abuse, eating disorders, disruptive behavior and suicide attempts. They then checked for evidence of mental disorders following abortions.
“This was the first study to examine associations between abortion and several mental disorders,” says Dr. Jitender Sareen, psychiatry. “We found a higher likelihood of lifetime mood disorder in women who had experienced an abortion compared with those who had never had an abortion.”
But even those involved with this study were rather hasty to tell the secular media no conclusions can be drawn linking abortion to mental illness! The Canadian news agency reports that “[a]bortion providers worry the study’s findings could be misinterpreted and become fodder for anti-abortion groups.”
In other words, regardless of the actual clinical information that exposes the deleterious effects of abortion on the mother, let alone the child, the political advocacy of abortion is what is most important. Rather than being objective, the news media must rush to see what those negatively affected by such studies have to say because, as far as I can tell, the act of abortion is not in the same category as other surgical procedures when it comes to telling the truth to the public. The protection of the sacred act of abortion is clearly what is most important to far too many who should be dedicated to honest and fair reporting.
For many years, I have known that the relatively naïve pro-life activities of the late seventies and early eighties that ultimately put abortion into the framework of “political issues” were bound to backfire. Today, as these two studies and the public reaction affirms, this is in fact the case. We are not dealing with honesty in the media or the medical profession when we discuss abortion today. No, it is all about politics.
And frankly, the only solution for all this is an ongoing discussion about the humanity of the preborn child with a specific focus on his human personhood.
As advocates for these people, we are not and should not be involved in a partisan political discussion. Nor will we patiently wait for the medical world to own up to the truth and admit that those who commit abortion are committing murder. We are the ones who are going to repeat the truth about what abortion really is, regardless of our popularity, our social status or our opportunities to be welcomed into the wider community of secular thoughts and ideas.
We know that abortion is evil. We know that those who advocate it are literally working for the father of lies, and we will continue to say it. Abortion is an act that takes the life of a person and the antidote is human personhood. A focus on that child’s humanity is the only educational tool that has lasting power to turn the tide.
God does not expect us to engage in political bickering, nor does His Word give us permission to relegate His babies and their fate to nothing more than a mere political issue! God expects us to tell the truth. If not us, who? Personhood now!