QuestionQUESTION: I'm very upset from reading your answers to peope seeking your advice. Why do you tell them to keep their babies if they have had the abortion and aren't sure if it terminated the baby or not why is it your place to tell them what to do? Part of the baby has been taken out so why keep going with the rest of the pregnancy if the fetus has beeb basically mutilated by the abortion?! Why put a baby through that I have had 2 abortions and pro choice is how it should be its a free country. Its their bodies why can't people just leave the subject alone? None one can tell me or anyone else to not have an abortion my life my body my choice. If abortions get outlawed abortions will still happen in back alleys or where ever it will still do the same as going to the clinic but the woman could die to so that means more dying because we wouldn't be able to get a safe abortion! So why do you think you have the right to try to stop abprtions?
ANSWER: Hello, sheila,
Well, I am going to post it. :) This is a legitimate question that needs to be answered.
I give the advice I do because abortion is dangerous for women, among other reasons. Regardless of all other considerations, there is a lot of fraud going on, and women deserve to know the truth. It's not a choice if you don't have enough information or the right information, to make the choice you would really want to make.
What you are asking is basically a political question, namely, whether abortion should be illegal or not. I'm not discussing the political question here.
Why is it "my place" to tell them what to do? Because they ASKED me! I have been working with women for years, and I have a pretty good idea of what women want and need, and what happens to them when they make various decisions. You don't have the right to tell them not to ask me, nor to tell me not to tell them what I think!
If a woman has a baby who has been damaged, and she finds out later, she can always have an abortion then, can't she? Well, why abort a baby who may be normal? The odds are in favor of the baby who survives being normal, at least in most cases. I haven't gotten a question from anyone yet that would be an exception. And if a woman bears a child who has been mutilated, she can choose adoption, and there are adoptive parents willing to raise that child.
Why put a baby through that? If a man loses an arm in an auto accident, should we put him through living with that for the rest of his life? Why don't we just kill him and put him out of his misery? A lot of this apparently hinges on the fallacious notion that the baby isn't a real human being. But science says he or she is, and that's good enough for me.
It may be a free country, but nobody has the right to hurt someone else. It's that simple. Your abortions seem to be troubling you. Why else would you be angry with me? I wasn't involved in your decisions or actions. But seemingly, you think I am an affront to you. Well, if your abortions are troublesome, I am always willing to talk to you about it if you ever seek to discuss it. And by the way, the baby is not the woman's body, or even part of it. If it were, I would have had a penis through much of my life, and I am proud I don't have one, thankyewverymuch! ;)
Abortions are happening in "back alleys" NOW. That's why I am so concerned. When women are hemorrhaging to death in India, and being butchered in the western world, what else would you call it? At least when the abortions were being done in the "back alleys" prior to legalization, the abortionists were a LITTLE bit concerned about not botching the job, because if they did, they'd get into trouble. But nowadays, they don't worry about that anymore, because they know they will get away with it. So they are a lot more careless. I could cite numerous examples. Nowadays, many times more women are dying than did before legalization. Bernard Nathanson admitted his figure of 10,000 dying was a lie. It was more like 67. But I know of hundreds of heavily documented cases of women dying from abortion in the United States, and we don't even have a problem with women hemorrhaging to death like they do in India.
The question of whether I have a right to stop abortions is a political question, and like I said, I don't deal with political questions here. All I can do here is advise and persuade. The final decision about what to do really does belong to the woman who asked me. But I'm giving her a side of the story she won't hear anywhere else, and she deserves to hear it. And she also deserves to be free of fraud and coercion. It's not a choice if you don't have the facts or someone or something is forcing you to do what you don't want to do. And I know about this firsthand, because I was subjected to fraud and coercion myself, and the emotional aftermath wasn't pretty. It greatly disturbed my peace of mind, and caused me horrible nightmares for months afterward. I wouldn't wish that off on anyone, including you.
Thank you for writing.
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QUESTION: I'm not talking about india or any orher countries we have a lot more technology than those countries. Yes women have dies from abortions but how many have also died from giving birth? People die its part of life. Its only a fetus untill it starts developing organs and body parts I think there should be a limit on the weeks of the fetus I have heard of abortion clinics doing up to 24 weeks that's wrong. I didn't say the women couldn't ask I was just reading your q and a and seen you telling them to not get another abortion after a failed one. What if the former abortion took the fetus head? Imagine the trama from birthing that. I'm not angry with you I'm just angry with the controvery I know the baby didn't ask to die nor did I ask to kill it I got pregnant on the pill so I was being safe and its something I can't deal with nor will I piut a child in this world up for adoption when it seems these days that people would rather adopt children from 3rd world country rather from their own. And what fraud are you talking about I'm really interested because I've never thought this subject would contain fraud so please explain and yes back alley abortions are going on but imagine if abortion became illegal how many more back alley abortions will happen.
ANSWER: Hi, sheila,
Thank you for the followup, and for your civility. :) It turns out that the death rate from abortion is significantly higher than the death rate from giving birth, the common misconception notwithstanding. Consider: a prior abortion may make a Caesarian section in a subsequent birth necessary, and Caesarian is the leading cause of death in a woman giving birth. But those deaths are attributed to the birth, not the abortion, even though without the abortion, the Caesarian wouldn't be necessary. A woman also has an immediate risk of dying from hemorrhage or anesthesia reaction, from abortion, and it is greater than from giving birth. A woman also has an all-cause risk of death several times that as she would if she carried to term. Her risk if committing suicide is six times what it would be if she carried to term, and other causes include homicide, accident, drug abuse, alcohol abuse, anorexia, bulimia, or self-abuse such as cutting. A woman who has an abortion is much more likely to develop breast cancer when she is in her 40's, and the form is particularly virulent and kills 1/4 of its victims. That wouldn't happen if she didn't have an abortion, and it should be attributed to the abortion, even though it never is. And we know that many death certificates list the complication as cause of death, even though the complication wouldn't have happened without the abortion, and it really should be listed as an abortion death. So the statistics lead people to very erroneous conclusions.
An embryo is designated as a fetus at approximately 8 weeks, and by that time, all the body parts are there. Only the details might be missing, such as fingerprints. The organs are not just "starting to develop". In fact at 6 weeks LMP (4 weeks gestation), the baby embryo already has a heartbeat, brain waves, eyes, and fingers.
If a woman goes to a doctor who advises a followup procedure, especially if it's a different doctor, she is free to weigh his opinion in with mine and make a decision.
What if the first abortion took the head? Yes, it would be traumatic, no doubt about it, and it would happen very quickly. They wouldn't have come here to ask me about it, because that is instant death. But the woman could have avoided that trauma by not attempting abortion in the first place, so it's not like it happened out of the blue. I sympathize, but it's not "unfair".
One common misconception is that birth control prevents pregnancy. It doesn't. It simply makes it less likely. Studies have shown that women who aren't married are more likely to experience contraceptive failure, by the way.
From having talked to women who have experienced both abortion and adoption, I'll tell you what they told me. They said adoption was difficult, but abortion was far worse.
People adopt from the third world because they can't adopt here; there are not enough children to go around, and because they care about the babies from the third world.
If abortion were made illegal, then the number being done would drop precipitously. This is because the 90% who really didn't want an abortion in the first place wouldn't have one. They had rampant abortion in Poland, and they made it illegal there, and the number done annually after it was made illegal was less than 100. So the death rate and other harm would also drop precipitously. It has already been shown that just a parental notification law not only greatly decreases the incidence of abortion among minors, but it ALSO causes a decrease in pregnancy itself, and illegitimate birth. And this isn't even making it illegal. A woman who doesn't want an abortion can tell a person who is trying to coerce her, that it is illegal and she isn't going to do it. This works well, and many women find themselves able to do this. And most people wouldn't suggest an abortion if it were illegal.
As for fraud, I could go into exhaustive detail, but I have given you some of the basics.
Thank you again for writing.
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QUESTION: I think that not all women would get a back alley abortion but I know some would if they were desperate enough but then there would be plenty of children to adopt.Well I'd love if you'd tell me about fraud because that opens up a whole new book to me on this subject. Is it true that sometimes they don't complete the abortion on purpose and I have done research on the breast cancer issue and its a myth. Also I forgot but I just read that there is a certain amount of weeks before the baby feels pain and is consious.
AnswerSheila,
About women being desperate enough to get a "back alley" abortion, it is true there are such women. But we can certainly protect as many women as possible. We have a law against rape, too, but it hasn't meant there aren't any more rapes. But at least if abortion is illegal, women won't go blindly to have one without being warned it's dangerous. When I had the emotional repercussions from my own experience, I wanted to sue the man who did that to me, but because of Roe v. Wade, I didn't have a case. That didn't make me very happy. A law against abortion serves to protect women from abortionists, and that's as it should be.
I hate to break it to you, but the breast cancer issue is NOT a myth. Unfortunately. For more information, go here:
http://www.abortionbreastcancer.com/
The overwhelming majority of studies show a connection. Dr. Joel Brind did a meta-analysis of the studies. You can read his conclusions. This is part of the fraud I was talking about, telling people this is a myth. The mechanism for this is well known. When a woman becomes pregnant, her breast cells start to grow. At that point, they become more susceptible to becoming cancerous. However, as the pregnancy progresses and they mature, eventually they become less susceptible, but this doesn't happen until late in the second trimester. Getting an abortion at the usual time leaves them vulnerable. It's because of the increased levels of hormones. We already know that certain hormones make a woman more susceptible. Well, the amount of these hormones are a couple of orders of magnitude greater in early pregnancy than before pregnancy.
As for how soon the baby feels pain, all I have to do is look at the faces of aborted babies to know they died an agonizing death. And they know a baby will try to avoid a pinprick, and they do this long before most abortions are done.
As for fraud, where do I start? The fact that they're telling people that breast cancer isn't caused by abortion is fraud. The fact that doctors put the complication on the death certificate instead of "abortion" is fraud. The fact that they tell people that abortion is safer than childbirth is fraud. The fact that they don't tell you about the all cause mortality is fraud. For more information on that, see this web site:
http://www.afterabortion.info/
I can point you to discussions of the medical dangers, documented with medical papers. The only people who will tell you this are people who are pro-life, but the important thing is it's documented. You probably won't have access to a paper called Some Consequences of Abortion to Children Born Subsequently, by Margaret and Arthur Wynn. They favored legal abortion before they started their study. The study is heavily documented with medical papers. After their study, they turned against abortion, especially for any woman who hadn't completed childbearing. One of the facts that sticks out in my mind is that they found from several sources, that about 35% of the women who have abortions suffer permanent damage to their reproductive organs. And by the way, they didn't pick up on breast cancer. Subsequently, Margaret Wynn joined Women for Life, which was the branch of Feminists for Life in England. You can find out more about Feminists for Life here:
http://www.feministsforlife.org/
Another thing you are probably unaware of (and that's fraud, too) is that surgical abortion weakens the cervix, and the result is that the incidence of prematurity is increased by 400%. Extreme prematurity is a leading cause of cerebral palsy, epilepsy, and autism, and the incidence of cerebral palsy is at least double what it would be otherwise as a result. You were talking about the suffering to a mother from having a baby that had been mutilated by abortion. Think of how she will feel if she finds out that her previous abortion caused her baby to develop cerebral palsy. For more information on that, Google the name Brent Rooney. Here is one link:
http://www.afterabortion.org/PAR/V8/n4/cerebralpalsy.html
That will keep you busy for a bit. And I really need to go do something else, so I'll talk to you again tomorrow if you like. Take care.
