MORE DANGEROUS

Abortion More Dangerous than Pro-Abortion Claims
by Eli Schuster

It is no surprise that pro-choice partisans do their best to portray the aborting of unborn human life as routine and safe. For example, the Canadian Abortion Rights Action League's (CARAL) Web site claims, ``Under normal medical conditions, abortion is a very safe procedure.'' It does, however, admit, ``rare, serious complications requiring follow-up treatment can occur.'' It also acknowledges recent studies suggesting a link between abortions and the development of breast cancer, but calls these studies ``inconsistent and inconclusive.'' However, according to Isabelle Begin, vice-president of the pro-life group Respect de la Vie Outaouais (RVO) of Hull, Que., abortions are far more dangerous to women than groups such as CARAL admit.

In February, Ms. Begin's group was sued by an abortion clinic for publishing a pamphlet claiming that one out of 25 women receiving a legal abortion in Canada is in subsequent need of up to seven days of hospital care. The clinic claimed the pamphlet was ``fallacious, morbid and alarmist.'' The clinic presented a Statistics Canada table placing the abortion complication rate at 1.1%, far lower than RVO's claimed 4%.

In late July, however, the clinic dropped the suit. Ms. Begin believes it was because her group did an effective job of rebutting the clinic's evidence in court. ``I genuinely think they must have all been brainwashed by the abortion industry's safe legal abortion myth,'' she says. ``They are not a thorough kind of people and perhaps they never took the time to read the endnotes at the bottom of the Statistics Canada complication table they quote.''

RVO demonstrated to the court that the StatsCan study cited by the clinic represented only those abortions performed in hospitals and did not include the nearly one-third of abortions performed in clinics. Furthermore, only 75% of hospitals report abortions to the Statistics Canada Therapeutic Abortions database. Of those, only a limited number declare medical complications, and even then, only ``immediate'' complications are taken into account. Another StatsCan study, ``Second-trimester abortions: Trends and medical complications,'' suggests an abortion performed at five-to-six months gestation runs a 22% risk of serious complications, up to and including death for the mother.

A medical researcher by training, Ms. Begin cites several reasons abortions are dangerous. ``A pregnant woman should never have surgery, let alone major abdominal surgery like abortion,'' she states. ``Her blood coagulation factors are extremely vulnerable, and she can easily bleed to death.  Shock, coma and death can happen within a few minutes after the onset of hemorrhaging, yet clinics can't be equipped for emergency blood transfusions.''

The pro-life advocate notes that suction machines often used for the procedure can damage a woman's uterus and even cause blood poisoning by sucking in fecal material from the intestines. Blood poisoning can also occur when abortions are incomplete. ``Cadaver parts remain inside the mother's womb and general blood poisoning [septicemia] sets in,'' Ms. Begin says. ``That's often fatal.''