ProChoice.com
Abortion... When is it safe?
No medical procedure is 100% safe so the answer is never Completely,and less safe than many procedures. To be 100% safe don't have one.
Risks are:
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The below information provides scientific and other documentation that legal abortion, contrary to popular opinion, doesn't help women but hurts them severely and/or kills them.
There are approximately 350 entries linked to below showing how abortion hurts women.
Word-searching can be done by key words. Examples are "infection", "hemorrhage", "chlamydia", "trauma", and "breast cancer". Search without matching case.
In addition, you can also search for categories of how abortion hurts women. These are the categories:
Physical effects, cancer
physical effects, death
physical effects, smoking, drinking, and/or drugs
physical effects, general
physical effects, later complications
general
psychological
suicide
Because many sources are quoted several times, they would take up too much space unless abbreviated. Thus, they have abbreviations.
Abbreviations:
NAIRVSC is Strahan, Newsletter of Association for Interdisciplinary Research in Values and Social Change. NAIRVSC is available from NRL Educational Trust Fund, 419 7th Street NW, Suite 500, Washington, DC 20004, 202 626-8800. MAB is Thomas W. Strahan, ed., "Major Articles and Books Concerning the Detrimental Effects of Abortion" (Charlottesville, VA: The Rutherford Institute, December 1993).
ABSNM is David C. Reardon, Aborted Women: Silent No More (Wheaton, IL: Good News, Crossways Books; Chicago: Loyola University Press). Reardon's address and phone number are Elliot Institute, P.O. Box 7348, Springfield, IL 92791; 217 525 8202
PSSFA is Anne C. Speckhard, "The Psycho-Social Aspects of Stress Following Abortion," (Sheed and Ward: Kansas City, 1987).
Saltenberger means Ann Saltenberger, Every Woman Has a Right to Know the Dangers of Legal Abortion, (Glassboro, NJ: Air- Plus Enterprises, 1982).
TAP is Pamela Zekman & Pamela Warrick, "The Abortion Profiteers: Nurse to Aide: Fake That Pulse!" Chicago Sun-Times, November 1978, quoted in Saltenberger, 168-170.
JAMA is Journal of the American Medical Association.
Other notes about citations:
When quotes extend beyond one paragraph, the source is given at the end of the last paragraph.
If a paragraph includes information from several sources, citations are given at the various places within the paragraph. Those not at the end are placed in parentheses.
If you feel you have been injured by an abortion and might want to take legal action, call
American Rights Coalition at 800 634 2224.
Now the actual material on abortion hurting women begins.
A Planned Parenthood brochure entitled PLAN YOUR CHILDREN for Health and Happiness says, "An abortion kills the life of a baby after it has begun. It is dangerous to your life and health. It may make you sterile so that when you want a child you cannot have it."
General Comments on Abortion Hurting Women
001) "As a result of these complications [hemorrhaging, viral hepatitis, embolism, cervical laceration, cardiorespiratory arrest, acute kidney failure, and amniotic fluid embolus], women in America have seen a massive increase in the cost of medical care. While the average cost of normal health maintenance for men has increased nearly twelve percent over the last eight years due to inflation, the average cost for women has skyrocketed a full twenty-seven percent." Julia Wittleson, The Feminization of Poverty, (Boston: Holy Cross Press, 1983) 81, quoted in Grand Illusions: The Legacy of Planned Parenthood, Highland Books, 1998), 86. Grant points out for the first sentence that insurance companies already adjusted cost figures to account for more women being in the work force.
002) "What about malpractice insurance for abortionists? The more dangerous the surgical procedure, the higher the cost of medical malpractice insurance. The State of Florida has always rated its doctors as Class I up to Class VI. On January 1, 1984, a special ultra-risk Class VII rating was created for abortionists. PIMCO, "Florida Insurance Reciprocal," American Association of Pro-Life Ob & Gyn Newsletter, 1984, 10, quoted in Willke, 196. This acknowledged the fact that the risk was greater than that for brain or heart surgery." Comment by Life Research Institute: And this notwithstanding that the fact of the butcher-job seldom gets back to the abortionist herself!
003) "Where can one find full documentation of published reports on abortion complications? The most important collection of scientific papers detailing damage is the Wynn Report. These (PROABORTION) doctors have published an exhaustive report of physical and mental complications of induced abortion in the United Kingdom and elsewhere." Dr. Jack Willke, Barbara Willke, Handbook on Abortion, (Cincinnati: Hayes Publishing, 1975) 96.
004) American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists did a survey in late 1974 to which 486 specialists responded with: Paul Ervin, Women Exploited, the other victims of abortion, (Huntington, IN and/or Thaxton, VA: Our Sunday Visitor, 1985) 88.
1. Have you had to treat patients with complications following abortions:
Answer Percent Number of physicians answering
Yes 91 443
No 9 43
2. Was hospitalization necessary?
Yes 87 423
No 13 63
3. Was there any mortality?
Yes 6 29
No 94 457
005) "Doctors have been known to race one another, competing for big bucks in the game of Who Can Perform the Most Abortions Today. Pamela Zekman and Pamela Warrick, "The Abortion Profiteers: Making A Killing In Michigan Avenue Clinics," Chicago Sun-Times, 12 November 1978, quoted in Saltenberger, 159.
006) Although most physicians limit themselves to 15 or 20 abortions per day, others may perform six to eight per hour. Doing too many may be monotonous, fatiguing the doctor and endangering the woman's health; but the profit motive may prompt a precarious pace--dozens and dozens a day. How is a woman to know whether her abortionist is trying for the world land speed record?" "The Abortion Profiteers: Dr. Ming Kow Hah: Physician Of Pain," Chicago Sun-Times, November 1978, quoted in
Saltenberger, 159.
007) About counseling, "On her first day as counselor at a prominent legal abortion clinic, an investigative reporter was trained to counsel by her supervisor. These were her instructions: (Saltenberger, 163.)
1. Don't tell the patient the abortion will hurt
2. Don't discuss procedure or the instruments to be used
3. Don't answer too many questions
4. Don't try to talk about birth control"
008) "SCHEDULING UNNECESSARY SURGERY: Virtually everywhere that investigators have 'tested' abortion clinics by submitting male urine for pregnancy tests the results have come back positive; not every time, but too many times. Women with negative results have been sold abortions they didn't need, suffering severe complications they weren't prepared for. . . ." TAP
009) "VITAL SIGN FRIVOLITY: . . . On the abortion assembly lines, workers invent vital signs. 'Don't take it, just fake it' could have been the motto of the clinic where untrained aides were told to fill out charts themselves. During her first day as a nurses' aide, Jacqueline was told it wasn't necessary to take pulse and respiration; she could enter anything on the chart. TAP
010) After surgery vital signs are even more crucial. A high temperature can mean infection; a weak heartbeat could mean shock. At one clinic, temperatures weren't taken for weeks because the batteries in the recovery room thermometers were dead. (Apparently they didn't believe in the old-fashioned, do-it-yourself type). For blood pressure readings nurses instructed aides to write down something a bit higher than it had been before the abortion." TAP
011) "In legalizing abortion, the Supreme Court said the abortion decision was to be made by a woman and her doctor. Today the decision is invariably made by the woman, alone, and implemented by a doctor she has never seen before, whose name she may not even know. The majority of abortions are done swiftly in efficiently run clinics where it is assumed the woman's mind was made up before she walked in the door. While there is a plethora of information on the complications of legal abortion
buried in medical libraries, no retrieval system has been contrived to collate it, no distribution method developed to disseminate it, no agency appointed to make it accessible to those who need the facts most--women considering artificial termination of pregnancy." Saltenberger, back cover.
012) "There are at least 30 health areas in which the repeating of abortion is detrimental to the health and well-being of women. There are no studies showing that repeating abortion improves health and well being." . Strahan, NAIRVSC, Winter 1993, 1.
013) From David Reardon, whose publisher can be found in the abbreviations: "5% reported child abuse or child neglect following their abortion."
- NOT ONLY DOES ABORTION DAMAGE WOMEN, BUT IT
ALSO DAMAGES SOCIETY AND THE WELFARE SYSTEM. IT
IS NOT TRUE THAT ABORTING POOR WOMEN KEEPS THE
WELFARE ROLES FROM GROWING. See the following eight paragraphs.
014) "Women who have had abortions are at greater risk of suffering emotional and psychological problems which may interfere with their ability to concentrate, make decisions, and interact with others, thereby reducing their level of job skills and employment opportunities.
015) Post abortion women are more likely to engage in drug and alcohol abuse, often as a means of 'numbing' negative feelings stemming from the abortion. This will in turn effect their ability to function in the work place and may inhibit their ability to enter into meaningful relationships.
016) Women who have had abortions are more likely to become pregnant again and undergo additional abortions.
017) Women who have had abortions are more likely to subsequently require welfare assistance, and the odds of going on welfare increase with each subsequent abortion.
018) Women who have repeat abortions tend to have an increasing number of health problems and greater personality disintegration, which increases the likelihood of their needing public assistance.
019) Post-abortion women have greater difficulty establishing permanent relationships with male partner. They are more likely to never marry, more likely to divorce, and more likely to go through a long string of unsuccessful relationships. This inability to form a nuclear family reduces household income and increases the probability that the woman and her children will require public assistance." . David C. Reardon, "Abortion and the Feminization of Poverty"
020) "Women undergoing abortion at the Yale-New Haven Hospital during 1974 - 75 had an overall incidence of welfare of 25.8% for those women having an abortion for the first time compared to a welfare incidence of 38.2% for women repeating abortion. Among black women, 55.6% of the first abortion group were on welfare compared to 65.6% of the repeat abortion group. Among white women the figures were 12.3% (first abortion) and 19.3% (repeat abortion)." M. Shepard and M. Bracken, "Contraceptive Practice and Repeat Induced Abortion: An Epidemiological Investigation," J. Biosocial Science, 11, 1979, 289,302, quoted in Strahan, NAIRVSC, Winter 1993, 3.
021) "In a study of women patients entering Boston Hospital for Women during 1976 - 78, 16.9% of the women with no prior abortions were welfare recipients compared to 26% for women with one prior abortion and 27% for women with 2 or more prior abortions." M. Mandelson, C. Maden, J. R. Daling, "Low Birth Weight in Relation to Multiple Induced Abortions," Am. J. Public Health, March 1992, 391-394, quoted in Strahan, NAIRVSC, Winter 1993, 4.
From The Facts of Pro-Life (3 paragraphs with quoted references shown) by Kenneth E. Kogut. Not yet published.
022) "Mothers suffer many psychological and physical complications from abortion. Although the public generally is unaware that these complications occur, psychological damage to the mothers [women become mothers at fertilization, not birth] occurs in approximately 95% percent of the women who have abortions, and physical damage occurs in approximately 45%. ("Statement of Facts," American Rights Coalition, quoted in Kogut, The Facts of Pro-Life, n.p 60.) David Reardon, famed researcher, notes that there are over one hundred complications associated with abortion._64_ This does not include death of the baby: This is not a complication of abortion, it is a goal."
023) "As with the psychological damages, a woman may not have physical damage, or she may have more than one type of physical damage. She may also have both physical and psychological damage." Kogut, 64.
024) "About 10,000 American women are hospitalized yearly for abortion complications." New York Times, 19 May 1993, C13.
025) "A study of 30 women who reported stress following their abortion found grief reactions, fear and anxiety, changes in sexual relationships, unresolved fertility issues, increased drug and alcohol use, changes in eating behaviors, increased isolation, lowered self-worth and suicide ideation and attempts." PSSFA, quoted in MAB, 45.
026) "A study of 532 Baltimore mothers (two-thirds black) found that mothers who maltreated their children were significantly more likely to have had a prior stillbirth or reported abortion (18.2% vs. 12.4%). With two prior stillbirths or abortions or combination thereof, the abuse rate was nearly doubled (4.3% vs. 2.4%). It was concluded that reproductive history may provide important clues in eliciting more precisely what family dynamics may be related to subsequent maltreatment." M.
Benedict, R. White, and P. Cornely, "Maternal Perinatal Risk Factors and Child Abuse," Child Abuse and Neglect, 9 (1985): 217-224.
027) "Chronic villus sampling (CVS) in the first 250 cases resulted in 22 genetic-induced abortions, 3 non-genetic-induced abortions, 10 fetal losses (4.4%); 11 pre-term deliveries (4.9%); 214 full-term deliveries. Complications included 4 threatened abortion, 42 (18.6%) vaginal bleeding, 7 malformations, 14 intrauterine growth retardation (6.2%). The authors conclude that the sampling technique is safe." Brambiti and Oldrini, "CVS for First-Trimester Fetal Diagnosis," Contemporary OB/GYN, May 1985, 94-104.
028) "Effect on Male-Female Relationships: Induced abortion appears to be generally detrimental to male-female relationships. Casual or relatively uncommitted or conflicted relationships are particularly likely to break up after the abortion. The incidence of break-up of relationships appears to increase over time. Where couples do not break up sexual dysfunction, communication problems and increased isolation are reported." MAB, ii-v.
029) "In Northern California, 2,138 respondents indicated widespread acceptance of ongoing biomedical research to perfect preselection methods and of making these procedures available to potential parents. Almost half agreed that they might want to use such techniques. Variation in levels of agreement were assessed by sex, race, marital status, child-parity, religious affiliation and attendance, level of education, class and general attitudes toward medical and scientific leaders. The implications of the general acceptability of sex selection go far beyond the freedom of parental choice to such matters to socialization patterns of first son, second daughter ordering, sex role inflexibilities, sex ratio imbalances, and include possibilities for curtailing rapid population growth." S. Hartley and L. Pietraczyk, Preselecting the Sex of Offspring: Technologies, Attitudes and Implications," Soc. Biol. 26 (1979): 232-246.
030) "Repeat Abortion: If a woman has a first abortion [that is, if she aborts her first pregnancy], she is approximately 4 times more likely to repeat abortion compared with women who have not had a prior abortion. Presently, about 50% of the abortions in the United States are repeat abortions. Moral and social deterioration is increasingly evident as abortion is repeated. Women who repeat have increasingly less stable relationships. are more likely to be separated or divorced, are more likely to be on public welfare, are increasingly isolated, have more difficulty in getting along with others, are more likely to smoke or abuse alcohol or other drugs, are more likely to be hospitalized for psychiatric problems, are increasingly likely to suffer from anxiety disorders, have greater difficulty in sleeping and are more likely to attempt suicide." MAB, ii-v.
031) "Repeaters tended to have more frequent intercourse, less satisfying relationships, and more difficulty sleeping. They were less likely to live with their partners. Women with prior abortion were almost 4 times more likely to have repeat abortion compared to women having an abortion for the first time." Christopher Tietze, "Repeat Abortions-Why More?" Family Planning Perspectives, September/October 1978, 286-288.
032) "Summarizes various studies and concludes that abortion is not the answer to social ills." Carlos Del Campo, "Abortion Denied _Ä“ Outcome of Mothers and Babies," (editorial), Canadian Medical Association Journal, 15 February, 1984, 361-362.
033) "Teenagers who experienced one prior abortion were approximately four times more likely to terminate a current pregnancy by abortion compared to teenagers with no prior abortion history.
Medicaid tended to increase the likelihood of carrying pregnancies to term. Married adolescents were more likely to carry a pregnancy to term than unmarried adolescents." Theodore Joyce, "The Social and Economic Correlates of Pregnancy Resolution Among Adolescents in new York by Race and Ethnicity: A Multivariate Analysis," Am. J. Public Health, 78(6) (1988): 626-663.
034) "There was a lack of contraceptive motivation in repeaters as an etiologic basis for recurrent unwanted pregnancy; the article cites a case of 17 prior abortions." Joseph Rovinsky, "Abortion Recidivism-A Problem in Preventative Medicine," Obstetrics and Gynecology, May 1972, 649-659.
035) "United States study reported that 80 percent of the women had their babies when refused a second-trimester abortion." N. Binkin, et al., "Women Refused Second Trimester Abortion: Correlates with Pregnancy Outcome," American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, 1 February 1983, 279-284.
036) "Women at a Phoenix, Arizona abortion clinic have an appointment to return in two weeks. The counselor stresses, 'It's important to come back. We need to check for possible infection and to see that your cervix has healed properly.' However, it is reported that two-thirds of them will never be heard from again. 'We'll call the number they've listed, and it will be non-existent, explains the counselor.'" (Susan Reed, "The Abortion Clinic: What Goes On," People Magazine (26 August 1985): 103 - 106,
quoted in MAB, 20. Induced abortion contributes to fetal risk as women with prior abortions are significantly more likely to consume alcohol or drugs during subsequent pregnancies intended to be carried to term compared to women with other pregnancy outcomes."
037) Induced abortion increases HIV-1 infection risk by 172% according to an Italian study. "Significantly higher prevalences of infection [HIV-1] were associated with induced abortion (0.49%) than with delivery (0.18%) (OR: 2.72; 95% CI: 2.29-3.22)" (European Journal of Epidemiology, Deliveries, abortion and HIV-1 infection in Rome, 1989-1994, 1997, 13:373-378). Translated into plain English, women who have induced abortions have an increased risk of HIV-1 infection of 172% and the researchers were at least 99% confident of this result. How many U.S. women would get HIV-1 infection yearly from induced abortion? If the same 172% increase risk of HIV-1 infection applied to U.S. women, there would be roughly 4,000 HIV-1 infections per year from women having induced abortions (1,300,000 abortions X .31%). This is not the only medical journal report linking induced abortions to increased HIV-1 infection risk? The authors (Damiano D. Abeni et al.) cite four other studies that have found increased HIV-1 risk from induced abortion.
After reading the above you should have a clear understanding that abortion is an unique procedure, in that, it is the only 'medical procedure' that gives special protection to those who perform it. Making those who profit from abortion safer and legally protected from the problems documented above.. This clearly defines for all, what it means to keep abortion safe and legal. As an industry, it operates with very little regulation or scrutiny and is continually lobbying for less.
If you like to be operated on in 3rd
world countries
but pay a civilized world price, this is for you.
Unlike bias industry claims, (that abortion is safer
than child birth,) according to a (non politically motivated) study
in finland, a woman is 4 times more likely to die within 1 year of an
abortion than childbirth.
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Overview of some risks sighting sources
Information from an attorney proving findings
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