Over the years, it has become common practice among most members of the media elite and the bureaucracies of major medical organizations — not to mention the U.S. Congress and state legislatures — to ignore the reality of what abortion is while also glossing over the actual harmful effects of medical, chemical and surgical abortion. Why this is so does not need explanation; it’s called power over people conjoined with financial profit.
Here is where a little history makes my point for me. There have always been little blips of truth in the media, but none that lasted longer than a soundbite. For example, one blogger on the Chicago Sun Times web site reminded us about investigative journalism in 1978 when the paper ran a series entitled “The Abortion Profiteers”:
In 1978, the Chicago Sun-Times wasn't interested in the morality of abortion when it spent five months looking at the procedure. The paper wanted to know: Were women who had abortions here receiving the safe, competent care the U.S. Supreme Court said they were entitled to back in 1973?
What Sun-Times investigative reporters Pam Zekman and Pamela Warrick — working with the Better Government Association — found in their series "The Abortion Profiteers" was, in some cases, downright terrifying.
The Sun-Times/BGA team had people work undercover in six Michigan Avenue clinics. The team uncovered incompetent and unqualified doctors who performed abortions without giving their patients anesthetics. Sometimes, it made no difference if a woman was actually pregnant — she'd still be sold an abortion.
In one truly horrifying case, a couple was sent to a disreputable Detroit abortionist whose dog accompanied the nurse into the operating room — then lapped up blood from the floor.
The series prompted immediate action.
In 2008, the Los Angeles Times could not ignore the tragic treatment of expectant mothers by abortionist Bertha Bugarin, telling its readers: “By the time paramedics arrived, the patient was lying in a pool of her own blood, her pulse racing and her blood pressure dangerously low.”
As tragic as these two examples are — and there have been many over the past 36 years — the crux of the problem with abortion and its risks never seems to get the sort of attention that would create concern among average folks who are really not quite sure why abortion is bad or why pro-life groups are constantly focusing attention on it.
A recent case in point that does not involve a bloody mess in a filthy abortion mill is Dr. Julian Little’s “Invited Commentary” in the American Journal of Epidemiology. Little discusses the various causes for premature birth, and among them he lists abortion. Little is not, however, the first researcher to have made this connection.
Time magazine uncovered a similar finding two years ago when it reported on the work of researchers at Virginia Commonwealth University:
The study not only found a link between abortion or miscarriage and low birth weight, but it also found that the risk appears to increase with every subsequent miscarriage or abortion. The accruing risk, says co-author Tilahun Adera at Virginia Commonwealth University, suggests that termination of pregnancy is a true cause of low birth weight and preterm birth rather than a variable associated with such conditions.
Researcher Brent Rooney has reported on the connection between previous abortions and cerebral palsy, suffered by children born after their mother aborted a sibling. He wrote,
So how many cases of abortion-related cerebral palsy occur yearly in the U.S.? If just 20 percent of U.S. women giving birth yearly had a previous induced abortion, this represents 800,000 women. The 1999 Danish study reported that a previous induced abortion doubles the risk of a very preterm birth. It is reasonable to assume that the risk of very low birth weight is also doubled. The 800,000 women will give birth to about 19,360 very low birth weight (VLBW) newborns, with about half of the cases (9,680) being due to a previous induced abortion.
The odds of a VLBW newborn having CP is about 9.34 percent. This yields 904 VLBW newborns with CP due to a mom's previous induced abortion. A similar calculation for moderately low birth weight (between 3 lbs, 5 oz. and 5 lbs., 8 oz.) births to women with prior induced abortions yields an additional 185 newborns with CP born to moms with prior induced abortions.
In addition, there is the undeniable connection between abortion and breast cancer, which dedicated people like Karen Malec and Dr. Joel Brind have been researching and reporting on for years.
But these reports and statistical facts, all easily verifiable, are not questions that interest most mainstream media. Nor do they interest the very people on Capitol Hill who tell us health care costs are running wild and need to be controlled. When it comes to the act of abortion, we run into a brick wall because, for too many in positions of power, abortion is viewed as above scrutiny, particularly if all the facts would render it unacceptable to the populace.
At the end of the day, it’s all about the money and controlling the lives of women and their preborn children; it’s about marketing despicable acts as nothing more than an aspect of “women’s reproductive health care.” Those who take such a position cannot acknowledge the fact that abortion is harmful, regardless of the women and children who suffer as a consequence of their deceit.
The marketing of abortion, whether by chemical, medical or surgical means, has never been about protecting women’s health. It’s never been about acknowledging the preborn child’s humanity. It’s never even been about being fair so that the people of this nation can be confident that the way they think of abortion and its availability is based on having all the facts at hand.
This is why the occasional death, premature birth or case of breast cancer or cerebral palsy will never be tied directly to the culture of death’s single most important product … abortion. When abortion is considered to be invulnerable by those in power, nothing but heartache, devastated families and dead babies will result.
This is also why American citizens are so dreadfully confused. Leonor Vivanco, reporter for the Chicago Tribune’s Redeye, took the time to study current polls and what they tell us about where we stand when it comes to abortion. Her bottomline: Inconclusive.
Of course it is! But the most important aspect of her comments prior to displaying the actual polling tables was this piece of journalism:
Questions about the legality of abortion seem more relevant than asking people to label themselves "pro-life" or "pro-choice" because it's more neutral and related to social policies, she said.
Here is a perfect example of the problem. Abortion is, in the eyes of many, nothing but a subject that should be treated in some way in formulating “social policy.” It is not perceived to be an act of murder, which is why the quest to protect the preborn as human persons is all the more urgent. But read on:
Sotirovic [associate professor of journalism analyzing results] said she could not make a strong conclusion about a possible shift in attitudes based on a few polls. Several polls need to have results that move in the same direction over a certain period of time to show a trend, she said. "We really do not expect very dramatic changes in a relatively short amount of time," she said. If there are dramatic changes, they should be confirmed in other polls, she said.
Clearly, there is a disconnect when it comes to understanding what abortion actually is versus how it is perceived by the folks who appear to have the upper hand in telling us what we should think on the subject.
This is why, as never before, we need to be specific in our speech. Abortion kills people; maims mothers, destroys our appreciation of our fellow human beings and kills the spirit of love that is the basis for real growth in a culture. When mother turns against child, willing to kill that child rather than sacrifice to affirm him or her, what else can we expect? There will be more bloody floors that rarely receive a blip on the news; more premature babies that will end up dead because it’s cheaper to do away with them; more violence in general as America is desensitized due to viewing criminal acts of murder as mere social policy questions.
Human personhood is the key to changing this discussion, converting the confused and thus saving the children. Please join us in this quest to revitalize our dying nation.