Part II (continued from yesterday)
By Kyle-Anne Shiver
More and more researchers are looking into what now seems a substantial link between induced abortions and later premature births. Being born prematurely is no small thing in a person’s life. Premature infants, even those born a mere few weeks early, bear a startling increase in a set of disabilities known by the acronym MACE. This cluster of disorders includes mental retardation, Autism, Cerebral Palsy and Epilepsy.
Very preterm newborns (under 32 weeks’ gestation) have 55 times the Cerebral Palsy risk as do full-term (at least 37 weeks) babies. Reproductive system infections in the mother have a known high risk for causing preterm births. Reproductive system infections are the most common complication of induced abortion, whether in the first trimester or later in the pregnancy.
Imagine a young woman walking unsuspectingly into an abortion “clinic,” and soothingly reassured that though she has chosen to “terminate” her first pregnancy, she ought have no fears whatsoever about future fertility or the well-being of future siblings of the little one she is about to have killed. This is precisely what happens. Right here. Right now.
Even though over the past decade 26 states have passed Woman’s Right to Know legislation, which attempts to shed a little light on the very real risks of even early-term abortion, most of the informed consent literature continues to maintain that these procedures—especially those early in the pregnancy—are little more dangerous than having a tooth filled. The possibility of infection in one’s gum is of far less future concern to the patient, however, than an infection in one’s reproductive system.
I interviewed Canadian medical researcher Brent Rooney (M.Sc) on his published professional articles dealing with elevated risk from prior induced abortions for premature births. Mr. Rooney pointed out that when a patient reads the word, “infection,” in a sketchy informed consent document, there is a huge temptation in this modern age of effective antibiotics to regard this warning as “trivial.” Infection is anything but trivial when it comes to abortion:
Reproductive tract infections may be the MOST IMPORTANT risk of induced abortions. A 1998 study by Krohn et al. reported that women who had an induced abortion in the previous pregnancy had FOUR (4) times the intra-amniotic infection risk (i.e., a WOMB infection) compared to women whose prior pregnancy went to term. Even the March of Dimes is pointing fingers at reproductive tract infections as a major cause of very premature deliveries. (emphasis in the original)
Yet, how many, mostly young, women walk into abortion “clinics” every day in America earnestly encouraged to believe that the only victim of this “terminated” pregnancy will be the unseen, developing baby about to be vacuumed “safely” from her womb? Reproductive tract infections might occur without her even being aware of it until she later tries to become pregnant. By then, it may be too late for the miracle antibiotics to work. And if she does become pregnant, that undetected infection will impose significant risk upon her “wanted” newborn for premature birth and the host of maladies associated with it.
This potential risk for lifelong disabilities in future children deserves a big, black warning box on all abortion facility literature. If we were dealing with anything but the sacred cow of abortion, I think we all know how stringent the health warnings would be.
Researchers Brent Rooney and Dr. Byron Calhoun allowed me to review their soon-to-be-published article detailing their study showing that the “Abortion-‘Preemie’ Effect Elevates Newborn Autism and Cerebral Palsy Risk.” This is scary stuff. Rooney and Calhoun cite Systematic Reviews by Shah and Swingle in 2009, which reported “that women with more than one previous induced abortion have nearly double the preterm risk as women who had no induced abortions.” Additionally, “Dr. Evelyn Himpens’ 2008 Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis reported that very preterm newborn babies (between 28.0 and 32.0 weeks’ gestation) have 55 times the Cerebral Palsy risk compared to full-term newborns; babies under 28.0 weeks’ have 129 the Cerebral Palsy risk as do full-term babies.”
Some of the most damning abortion evidence has come from Poland, where the government passed a stringent abortion-restriction law in 1989, which reduced [its] former abortion rate by 98 percent. Poland’s Central Statistical Office demonstrated that between 1990 and 2006, the death rate of Polish children under age 5 with Cerebral Palsy plummeted by 71 percent. That’s an awful lot of suffering saved, not to mention the monetary cost, and if outlawing abortion played even a small part in this saving grace, it ought to raise the awareness levels of every conscious citizen with a beating heart.
The risks of induced abortion just continue to pile up, but are buried by vested interests before the ink on the research documents gets dry. It’s no wonder. Billions of dollars, thousands of professional reputations and political careers, and hundreds of thousands of jobs are on the line.
The most appalling thing I discovered while researching this article is the fact that the most common method of abortion in use in America today, vacuum aspiration, was never even tested on any primate animal subjects before being adopted wholesale by the worldwide medical community. For those who don’t know, this failure to animal test first is a serious contravention of the Nuremberg Code, adopted in the aftermath of the Holocaust.
The vacuum aspiration (VA) device and technique was pioneered by Chinese doctors, who published their study on the device’s effectiveness in 1958 (translated into English and made available by the British Medical Journal in 2008). The Chinese doctors tested their newfangled device for killing babies in utero on 300 women under state control; no animal studies were ever done. Ever. And the entire Western world of so-called excellent and humane medicine never bothered to do any animal studies either.
Even though there have been improvements over time to both the device and the methods used, primate studies might have indicated breast cancer risk, infection risks and future birth problems for patients and should have been conducted. There’s simply no excuse for a bunch of eugenics-minded social engineers foisting upon an unsuspecting public a medical procedure with no proven foundation of safety. Period.
From this one glaring breach of medical ethics alone, it should be concluded that doctors themselves have collaborated in this monstrous abortion-risk cover-up.
And the only question now is, Where are the lawyers? We’re looking at a gold mine here. Fraudulently claiming no risk where risk is known to exist is very serious grounds for legal action.
So, if I were a trial lawyer, I would be rounding up class action suits right this minute. And if I were counseling women approaching abortion facilities, I would keep God in my private thoughts and speak instead of breast cancer risk and reproductive tract infections and premature birth horrors.
When this thing finally reaches critical mass, the public outrage will make that against tobacco companies look like nothing more than a tempest in an inconsequential teapot. The truth of the abortion risk cover-up will cause a veritable tsunami of vitriol, lawsuits and long-overdue bankruptcies. Pro-abortion politicians will be running for cover faster than you can say flip-flop.
And if you ask me, it couldn’t happen to a more deserving lot of guileful scoundrels. Abortion is good women’s health care? Oh, please.
The Marlboro man couldn’t have said anything more disingenuous.
Kyle-Anne Shiver is an independent journalist and a frequent contributor to online journals, American Thinker and Pajamas Media. Her greatest claim to any sort of fame, however, is her forty-one year marriage and raising two self-sufficient, honorable American children, now adults. She currently fills her empty-nest-provided hours researching and writing on the topics of our day from a conservative perspective. She welcomes you to visit and comment at her web site: http://www.commonsenseregained.com.
This article has been reprinted with permission and can be found at http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/04/the_coverup_of_abortions_real_1.html.
