DOE JOINS ROE

The Elliot Institute News
August 25, 2003
"Doe" Joins "Roe" to Reverse Supreme Court Rulings
Cano and McCorvey Seek to Protect Women's Health

Springfield, IL -- August 25, 2003 - The two women who asked the Supreme Court to strike down state laws restricting access to abortion in 1973 are now asking the Supreme Court to reverse those rulings.

Sandra Cano, the "Mary Doe" of the Doe v. Bolton, case is filing her motion to set aside that ruling today in Atlanta.  "I'm going back to court to right a wrong," said Cano. "Abortion has hurt millions of women," she said, "and I regret my role." A similar motion by Norma McCorvey, the plaintiff in Roe v Wade, was already filed this past June.  Her motion is currently pending before the Court of Appeals of the 5th Circuit.

Cano and McCorvey both regret their individual roles in Doe and Roe and seek to reverse their cases which brought abortion on demand and its tragic effects to America. McCorvey's motion to reverse Roe, filed June 17, 2003, is on appeal to the Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit and headed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

"The truth is that I did not seek or want an abortion. I was young, uninformed, and in a difficult situation," Cano said. "Not once in the process was I given an opportunity to speak, and no judge or attorney in court asked me how I felt about abortion," she said. Cano says her case was based on lies and deception.

Cano and McCorvey were originally brought before the Supreme Court as women who needed abortions in order to protect or improve their lives.  Now they return to the Supreme Court as representatives of the women who have been exploited and injured by the abortion industry.  McCorvey once worked at an abortion clinic and now believes, with Cano, that abortion is a safety hazard, not a safety net.

Over 1,000 women who have suffered severe physical and/or emotional problems related to their abortions have provided sworn statements in support of Cano and McCorvey's motions. "We're standing with Sandra Cano in saying the Doe decision was a mistake. We now have conclusive evidence that abortion is physically dangerous and emotionally devastating," said Dianne Donaudy. "It harms women. Each of us deeply regrets having an abortion. We want the public, especially women, to know the truth about the tragic and harmful consequences of abortion," she said.

According to David Reardon, Ph.D., the author of numerous medical studies on abortion and director of the Elliot Institute, thirty years of experience with abortion has revealed medical risks that were unanticipated in 1973.  "When Roe and Doe were decided, the Court accepted at face value the claim that women were more likely to die from childbirth than from an abortion. Over just the last six years, two major record based studies have proven that the opposite is true.  Abortion is associated with a significant rise in mortality rates, which persists over many years.  In addition to a six-fold increase in deaths from suicide, over the longer term women are at significantly higher risk of death from breast cancer and cardiovascular disease, which is probably mediated by higher levels of anxiety and depression." Other physical complications associated with abortion include elevated rates of pelvic inflammatory disease, miscarriage, and premature delivery of later pregnancies. Emotional complications are even more common.

Reardon, who co-authored "Forbidden Grief: The Unspoken Pain of Abortion" with Theresa Burke, Ph.D., says emotional problems are more common than physical complications after an abortion. Recent studies have shown that women who have abortions have significantly higher rates of depression over long periods of time compared to similar women who carry unintended or unwanted pregnancies to term.  In addition, compared to women who give birth, women who abort are significantly more likely to subsequently engage in substance abuse, suicidal behavior, or require psychiatric hospitalization.  They are also more likely to have subsequent relationship problems and divorce.

Cano's and McCorvey's motions, Reardon says, offer the federal courts their first opportunity to hear directly from the women themselves how abortion has effected their lives.  "After thirty years of experience in counseling and performing abortions, the medical community has still not measured or quantified any significant benefits from abortion.  We have measured a lot of risks, but there are no quantified benefits in regard to benefits to the physical, psychological, social, or even economic well-being of women.  All the claims of benefit are anecdotal. But patient's need to know the likelihood that a treatment will produce the benefits they seek. Do women who abort to save a relationship, for example, keep their man and live happily ever after? The best evidence indicates no.  Any objective risk- benefit analysis reveals that abortion is a poor choice. Doctors who practice evidence based medicine would never recommend an abortion in the light of today's research."

To view the Doe press kit, legal documents, scientific research and some of the more than 1,000 affidavits, please visit <http://www.operationoutcry.org>