IS INDUCED ABORTION EVER GOOD TREATMENT?
Philip G. Ney MD FRCP(C) MA
ABSTRACT
Philip G. Ney MD FRCP(C)
Mount Joy College
14/10/2011
Although abortion is the most commonly performed medical procedure in the world there is no evidence that it is medically indicated or beneficial for the patient. Abortion has never been established as an unencumbered right. It is always assumed it is good for women but the research is clear that it is not. This paper briefly reviews the best evidence for and against induced abortion as treatment. It alerts scientists and physicians to the defects of major studies now published. Reviewing many studies indicating harm and thoroughly seeking evidence of necessity and benefit, it can be concluded that induced abortion is only harmful.
Since induced abortions are only harmful, any country that provides induced abortion is legalizing an irreversible, invasive, harmful medical act. No country can be considered civilized and legalize wide-scale harmful acts. The least any country must now do is to suspend the payment through taxes for abortion until the abortionists and their supporters show substantial evidence that abortions are: necessary, beneficial, free of major harm, done only when other less invasive, more reversible treatments have been tried and only done with fully informed consent and by physicians who are convinced by a follow-up of their patients and by a thorough knowledge of the pertained scientific literature that they are acting in good faith.
Key words: research, abortion, indications, benefits, harms, ethics, evidence based medicine, suits against physicians, consciece
Author details Philip G. Ney Mount Joy College, PO box 27103 Victoria B.C. Canada, V9B 5S
Key words: research, abortion, indications, benefits, harms, ethics, evidence based medicine, suits against physicians, conscience
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IS INDUCED ABORTION EVER GOOD TREATMENT?
Philip G. Ney MD FRCP(C)
I Introduction
They are called therapeutic abortions but is there any evidence that abortions are effective treatment for any recognized disease?
The 1967 Abortion Act of England states that abortions are allowed if they would prevent a seriously harmful physical or mental disorder. So where is the evidence that abortions are effective in preventing harm?
Freely available abortions were touted as necessary to prevent women having unwanted children who were assumed to be more frequently abused or neglected. Did induced abortions by the thousands, reduce the prevalence of child mistreatment?
Many proponents of easily available abortions vigorously argued that abortions were necessary to free a woman from child induced drudgery and make her pursuit of a happy life attainable. Where is the evidence that women are presently more fulfilled and content than they were before induced abortions became readily available?
To attempt an answer to these questions, we must start with some basic assumptions about the practice of medicine. The following deliberations do not concern “medical abortion” even though they are deemed to be safe and efficient up to 14 weeks LMP.
- The practice of induced abortion (IA) is medical because it is:
- performed by medical personal
- done in medically licensed facilities
- paid for by taxes and/or medical insurance.
- uses the term medical term “therapeutic”
B Therefore, induced abortion must be:
- i) Regulated like every other medical procedure including:
appropriately trained staff, aseptic conditions, informed consent etc.
- performed only in agreement with the practice of evidence based medicine
- regulated by the government and medical licensing bodies
C The practice of evidence based medicine insists that:
- There is a proper indication to treat some pathological process, otherwise “primum non nocere” (first do no harm) must apply. Physicians are not allowed to interfere with a healthy process.
- This indication must apply to all those who are included in the group under consideration and to the particular patient for whom the provedure is being recommended.
- There is strong scientifically verified evidence of short and long term benefit to the patient.
- Since there are few treatments without side effects, any hazard or harm from side effects must be significantly outweighed by the benefits.
- Less invasive and more reversibly treatments have been tried first and repeated until it is clear the patient is not responding to them.
- The procedure in question is done in good conscience. The physician must be fully informed of the effective of the treatment “under his knife” by conducting a careful follow-up of his/her patients. This physician must also be fully conversant with scientific studies that relate to this procedure.
- The patient is given a clear recommendation and a fair chance to accept or reject that treatment recommendation by the physician. In giving that recommendation the physician must inform the patient of all other possible remedies.
- The physician must be motivated only by what is in the patient’s best health interests in the long term.
- Fully informed consent is obtained after sufficient time and freedom to choose or reject the doctor’s recommendation is given. All benefits, hazards, alternatives must be described. The patient must be able to obtain unbiased answers to all relevant questions and a 2nd opinion if desired or indicated.
- All related personal emotional and interpersonal conflicts (approximately 53 major issues relating to abortion) that impinge on the proposed treatment must be resolved.
- The patient must be competent, fully rational and mentally capable to understand and be able to make the decision. The competence required is determined by the importance of the decision, e.g. abortion has an important life- long impact.
- Only under unusual conditions may a physician interrupt a normal process or healthy development especially when it leads to greater health, wealth and happiness as does a pregnancy.
xiii) Nowhere is any medical procedure provided legally upon the demand of a patient at any time for any reason as an unencumbered “right”.
xiv) No physician can prescribe a medicine or perform a surgical procedure when it is clearly not indicated or beneficial.
II Purported indications for “treatment” by abortion.
A.Social.
- A woman’s welfare, i.e. improved happiness, work and educational success and relationships are improved because of her abortion. There is no evidence to support this claim. The best evidence is that women are: more discontented, still want babies (at age 40 yrs +) have more marital violence and divorce. Marital violence more often follows rather than precedes abortion. (Mota 2010)
- Family benefits. There is no evidence that abortion makes a family happier and more cohesive. There are more family breakups and more children in foster homes associated with abortions.
- Rape and incest. There is no evidence that women who abort for these reasons are happier and content with their decision.
- Child abuse and neglect. The evidence shows that child abuse and neglect increased even though unwanted children were aborted. (Ney 1979)
B. Medical
- HIV positive women. Live births rates were considered to be lower in HIV positive women but with effective combined antiretroviral treatment, live births rates are similar to HIV-negative women. (Haddad 2017).
- To prevent illness from “unsafe abortion” “In reducing fever in all (post abortion Nigerian) women”, “Clindamycin did not differ significantly for penicillin plus chloramphenicol” (Udoh 2016) The date of the dramatic decline in abortion related deaths in the US coincided with the availability of antibiotics not with the date of the Roe v. Wade decision.
- To preserve the mother’s life. Less than 0. 5% of abortions are done to preserve the life of a mother, for example those rare cases threatened by a hypertensive crisis. Recent recommendations are that if a women with pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) decides to keep the child and declines the offer of abortion, she should be treated in a specialized PAH centers,(Olsson 2016) Wechter and Harrison (2014) having reviewed the literature and analyzed their own practices confirm with no qualms that “elective abortion is not a treatment for any physical disease”
C. Surgical
All surgical procedures can be done successfully when a woman is pregnant. There is no medical need for an elective abortion (Wechter and Harrison 2014).
D. Psychiatric
- a) Psychiatric illness. It was often claimed that abortions were needed to prevent psychiatric illness in women. For many years it has been well established that all psychiatric illnesses are made worse by abortion (Babikian 1975), especially depression. Although personally prochoice, Prof. David Fergusson in the Department of Psychological Medicine, University of Otago, Christchurch, carefully analyzed the data from his long term, longitudinal study of a representative population and concluded that “There is consistent evidence to show that abortion was not associated with a reduction in rates of mental health problems.”(2013).
- b) Suicide. Changes in the law to make abortion legal and easily available in some countries were advocated as necessary to prevent suicide. The clear evidence is that compared to women who give birth, women who have an abortion are 300 to 600 % more likely to commit suicide. (Reardon 2002, Gissler 1996)
Conclusion
There are no scientifically established medical, surgical, psychiatric or social indications for abortion. Pregnancy is not a disease. Being conservative because scientists never say never, I state that there are very, very few (< 0.5 % of pregnancies) where there is a valid indication for an abortion. Removing an ectopic pregnancy does save a mother’s life but unlike an abortion, there is no desire to kill the tiny infant. Some-day soon, some bright surgeon will devise a way to delicately carve out the baby implanted in the fallopian tube and re-implant him/her in the soft receptive lining of her uterus.
III Medical benefits claimed
- “Anxiety relief.” The study of anxiety reduction by Brenda Major et al (2000) is full of basic methodological flaws e.g. Low rate of follow-up, biased sample, biased observers etc. yet it is often quoted as showing the benefit abortion in relieving anxiety. She also found that relief following abortion declines with time while feelings of regret increase but since the whole study is very suspect, even this hopeful finding cannot be accepted.
- “Safer than a full term pregnancy”. It is foolish to make a comparison between rates of illness or death for pregnancies ending in a delivery with rates for pregnancies for full term pregnancies are 3 times longer than those ending in an abortion. All hazards and diseases are more likely to occur on the basis of chance alone because the full term interval is much longer. Gissler studying Finland (1997) and Coleman studying Denmark (2013) have conclusively shown that abortions are statistically more likely to be associated with maternal death than full term births. Koch et al (2013) describes how when Chile outlawed abortion, the rate of maternal injury and death declined, not increased as those promoting free abortions had claimed.
IV Harms from abortion.
- A. Clinical Observations.
- Loss of “mother freshness” for the rest of her life. A woman can never again hold a baby without feeling regret and shame of her abortion. It is like the traumatic loss of virginity.
- Chronic fatigue. From persistent unresolved mental conflicts resulting from abortion there is a loss of homeostasis, energy efficiency, vigor and hope.
- Fibromyalgia. (Ney 2001) It appears that the pain hormones resulting from tearing apart the infant’s body are absorbed into mother’s blood and transmitted to her brain. There they may result in an engram of pain that may stay with a woman for life.
- Autoimmune diseases. DNA from aborted babies flushed down drains can be found in drinking water and vegetables irrigated by water from rivers into which macerated baby body parts have been flushed, may account for the increasing frequency of auto-immune diseases.
- Marital discord. Vicious fights arise from increasing mutual male- female hostility and distrust. He coerces her to abort. She aborts their baby without his awareness and consent. Hetero-sexual appetite and enjoyment fade because he is disgusted with putting his precious penis in the chamber where his baby was murdered and she is continually anxious that she would again be impregnated and need have another abortion.
- Sexual disorientation. Some men and women are so afraid to make another baby that he/she will need to be aborted. They prefer any kind of sexual encounter that isn’t vaginal intercourse. PASS people are characteristically confused about their identity. They are easily persuaded that their confusion will be resolved if they just “out” themselves.
- More patients. In clinical general psychiatric consulting practice, I estimate that 1 in 4 patients, female, male and child are associated with conflicts surrounding an abortion.
- B. Research.
- Less breast feeding. Breast milk is the best source of essential fatty acids which make up the white matter of the brain and myelin sheaths of peripheral nerves. Those lacking EFA during infancy may not as bright or as quick as they were designed to be.
- Ney and Wang (in preparation) in two studies, discovered that prior to the introduction of the one child policy in China the breast feeding rate was 87%. After the one child policy took effect and many more women had abortions, the breast feeding rate dropped to 18.7 %. (Table I).
- Breast milk is still the best source of essential fatty acids that make up the white matter of the brain and myelin sheaths of peripheral nerves. Those lacking EFA during infancy are not as bright or as quick as they were designed to be. (Issacs 2010)
- Increased drug and alcohol abuse.
- a) Drower et al (1974) examined the impact of an abortion (almost randomly assigned) in South Africa and found that those having induced abortion compared to those who delivered their babies, had higher rates of tobacco, alcohol and tranquilizer use.
- b) Reardon, et al. (2000) found that women aborting their first pregnancy are approximately 5X more likely to misuse drugs compared to those who delivered their babies.
Post abortion women feel post abortion despair. They desperately want to ease their emotional pain but they cannot find few physicians or counselors who will take their intense abortion related conflicts seriously. Because of their sense of shame and social stigma it isn’t easy to have casual conversation about abortion. They turn to drugs and alcohol for the momentary relief from anxiety and guilt. Too often they are incorrectly diagnosed as depressed and prescribed antidepressants. Too often they become addicted to a variety of pain and insomnia relieving medication.
3.Increased rate of violent death
Gissler et al, (1979) in Finland, did a record linkage study of that country’s whole population and found that women with induced abortion compared women who delivered had a Relative Risk (RR): of: 4.2 for accidents or injuries, 6.5 for suicide and 14.0 for homicide. Reardon et al. (2002) studied 186,000 Medicaid recipients with a record linked study in California, and found that for subjects adjusted for age and psychiatric hospitalization comparing induced abortion to infant delivery, the RR were: 1.44 for accidents, 3.12 for suicide and 1.93 for homicide. It appears that suicides result from a woman who feel: trapped with no happy alternatives, without professional help, despairing from unremitting sorrow and guilt, fear of partner or God reprisal, anger at self for allowing herself to get trapped into an impossible dilemma, fury at her partner who abandoned her at the most critical juncture of her life, depression from pathological grief, guilt that is given superficial shrift and the gradual alienation of friends and family who give up on her for not taking their advice: “Get your act together” but who is dragging them all down with her “stupid whining”
- Poor physical health
- a) Ney et al. (1994) studied patients from family practices in Victoria, B.C. They were an unselected representative sample of Canadians. Those who had induced abortion compared to those who had a delivery, miscarriage or stillborn had significantly poorer general and emotional health.
- b) Berkley et al (1984) Found that women patients in their family practice had a 80% increase in attendance for medical reasons and 180% increase for psychosocial reasons following an abortion.
- 5. Increased psychiatric illness.
- Reardon et al (2003) in record linked study found that, psychiatric hospitalization after induced abortions are significantly increased for 4 years following an abortion. This correctly indicates that post abortion adverse reactions do not fade with time as abortionists claim..
- Coleman (2011) a meta-analysis of 22 large studies found the increased risk of mental health problems depending on the type was 55% to 138% for women who abort compared to women who deliver.
- Fergusson et al (2009) a strong prochoice advocate in New Zealand has spent his life doing a detailed longitudinal of child development. He found significantly increased risks of mental health problems in those who had abortions.
- Increased Breast Cancer
- Royal College of Obstetrician and Gynecologists (2011) disputing the link of induced abortion with later breast cancer agreed that IA was associated with prematurity which is associated with increased rates of breast cancer.(also see comments Ney 2011)
- Brind et al (1999) and Lanfranchi (2014) summarized all the studies for and against the Abortion Breast Cancer (ABC) link and maintain (with valid reasons) that good research supports the close positive correlation of these 2 outcomes. Reasons for this are that abortion: truncates the pregnancy biorhythm, leaves cells immature, removes the protective effect of breast feeding, and contributes to more depression which inhibits immunity and thus increases the risk of various cancers.
- Increased child abuse and neglect
- a) Ney et al. (1979, 1993) found that induced abortion is significantly associated with poor bonding, diminished ability to respond to helpless cry, poor control of parent’s rage, reduced empathy, and thus a statistically increased risk of abusing and/or neglecting their other children.
- b) Coleman et al (2005) found that one prior abortion compared to no loss, women had a 144% higher risk of physically abusing a child.
- Post abortion survivor syndrome
- Ney et al. (1983, 2010) Children whose parents wanted them but aborted one or more siblings have a statistically greater chance of having: existential guilt, distrust of authority, sense of impending doom, tendency to harm themselves, disinterest in having children, ontological guilt, feelings of unreality, preoccupation with the occult and confused identity.
- Other harmful effects of induced abortion that are repeatedly observed and scientifically established are:
infertility, single child families, prematurity, still births, low birth- weights, miscarriage, family violence, nightmares, sleep disturbances, poor sex life.
IV. General Effects
- Economic. World-wide, exponential decline in fertility rates and falling birth rates in most countries result in diminished demand for goods and services and thus deflation and lower stock market trading prices. Older people despair as they see their carefully saved assets evaporate as house prices fall below the value of their mortgage.
- Health care costs escalate. Universal, complete health care is not possible with increasing rates of older people plus a wider variety of sexually transmitted diseases plus the damaging effects of abortion (incomplete list above) These require a large increase in staff and facilities. Often doing abortions takes priority over more urgent and more complicated surgeries.
- Increased pressure to euthanize. As a result of poor economies and burgeoning health care budgets, there is an increasing desire to euthanize older and chronically ill people to “free up beds” and “reduce hospital costs”. Moreover older people who are also abortion survivors feel a double guilt of being alive and taking away chances for health from the young people.
- Greater ambient fear, guilt and hopelessness. When people are vaguely feeling that God is not at all pleased with human arrogance and murdering babies and moral depravity, they feel deep unexpressed fears of impending doom. Instead of getting right with God they seek to distract their “morbid” thoughts with more frequent and more intense entertainment, sex, travel, drugs and occult fantasy.
- About 60% of all the women in the world have had an abortion by age 45. This means about 60 % of men have contributed by coercing or neglecting or abandoning their partner when she is first pregnant. About 50% of the world’s younger people are abortion survivors. Almost everyone is inhibiting their God given instinct to protect babies. The net effect is massive dehumanization, which makes people more crude, rude, hard and selfish. The second greatest harmful effect of abortion is dehumanization. Dehumanized people are very vulnerable to enslavement.
- Seduction and Perversion of the Medical Profession.
After many centuries of struggling to persuade naturally suspicious patients who didn’t trust their physician or his intentions or his brightly colored potions, Hippocrates and colleagues concluded there was only one way to gain the patient’s cooperation. By his gods, the whole pantheon, he swore and made all his students swear that they would never, never poison or abort their patients. Miraculously over many centuries, patients trusted that their physician would always and only treat them to the best of their ability and to the limit of their time and resources. Having struggled to gain this confidence, physicians, nurses etc. have thrown it away as if it were garbage. In doing so they have lost cooperation and gained suspicion that promotes the request for more and more information about the prescribed medication, doubts about the procedure, desires for 2nd and 3rd opinions, requests for more lab tests and chronically dependent patients with inadvertently conditioned helplessness who frustrated even the most patient physician by seeming never to want to become well.
This all came about because physicians wanted to be liked which meant they had to hold a politically correct ethic. In addition, physicians were too easily persuaded by the merchandizing media that they were victims of poverty (relatively speaking) and not heroes extending their efforts beyond the call of duty. Once money became their main object, the desire for power soon followed. With a survey of ex-abortionists, it was found that they honestly admiteded that their main motive was not helping poor confused women, but power and money (Ney and Peeters 1997). The net effects are that: various branches of the once noble profession now waste time vying for more power and pay, patients wander from physician to physician trying to find one they can trust, health care becomes burdened with bureaucrats, watch-dogs and penny pinchers, early burn out, and a declining public and personal respect.
- Abortion as treatment of those injured or vulnerable.
- Physical
To the consequence of an induced PID infertility, some have recommended technologically enhanced methods e.g. IVF for conceiving and bearing a child. However there are more genetic disorders associated with IVF. Most of the extra pregnancies of tiny babies are discarded down the drain. If there are too many surviving infants after they are successfully implanted, they are aborted. Their parents know this and some feel bad, usually not bad enough to keep them from doing it again.
- Psychological.
There are many post abortion counseling techniques that range from the sublime to the ridiculous. One empirically derived, statistically validated method with good results is not widely known or often used because it is not a quick cure (Ney and Peeters 1997) The Hope Alive group therapy program has been shown to improve most facets of the PAS and PASS problems (Ney et al 2010).
- Spiritual.
Most religions studiously avoid trying to help the people in their congregations that are adversely affected by abortion. Yet upon request God always forgives completely and uses good methods to make deeply damaged people better but not whole, not in this life. Although God always forgives He has not reconstituted and resurrected aborted babies nor reversed the damages from wrong choices, thus there is no healing and to claim there is, creates false hopes which lead to bitterness and despair.
- Social.
Induced abortion increased rather than prevented child abuse and neglect who needed extensive, proven treatment (Ney 1979, Ney et al 2010). Consequently there is a growing demand for foster homes, some of which are unsuitable. There needs to be carefully planned and executed rehabilitation programs for PASS young people.
VI Some problems with research on abortion.
Most studies have some of these serious faults
- Confusing a normal reaction (complicated grief) to an abnormal event (abortion) with an abnormal reaction (depression) to “normal” event (termination of pregnancy).
- Not comparable situations; post birth with post abortion.
- Short follow-up, often < 2yrs, does not measure the harms which are well covered by strong defenses and operate as long as the person is healthy.
- Not all pregnancies are accounted for.
- Comparing the rates of deleterious effects of a pregnancy lasting 9 months with the rates of these effects from an abortion of a pregnancy which lasted usually 2.5 months.
- Dichotomous measures distort variables spread on a continuum
- Very large samples have no real advantage except in finding rare factors, when effect is large
- The terms “Unwanted” and “Unintended” are much too variable, unstable, and indefinable to be used as controlling factors. A woman’s desire to be pregnant may fluctuate daily. “Wanting” a baby increases with the duration of the pregnancy.
- Interviews done by people who are much too susceptible to the very difficult to control influence of their bias. Self-report questionnaires are more accurate, particularly if they use visual analogue scales.
- The burden of proof lies with performer and promoter but these persons feel no obligation to perform this usual duty. They don’t try to prove the fetus is not a person nor that their universal treatment for all ailments, abortion is necessary and beneficial.
- There is a strong prochoice bias in funding and publishing research that sways public perception of what are the facts.
VII. Literature searches for benefit from abortion
To determine whether there is any evidence of medical or social benefit from any induced abortion, a thorough up-to-date (30/6/2017) search was made thru Pub Med, the generally accepted source of all research published in all referred medical, psychological, nursing and social journals. This is not proof there isn’t some missed or unpublished study showing benefit, but it is to affirm evidence of benefit is very rare or non-existent. It is more surprising that those who perform and support freely available induced abortions haven’t even tried (didn’t even think they needed to) to determine if abortion was good for women, such was their confidence in public and government and legal approval. Moreover there were no animal studies; the most basic criteria for the approval of an unproven procedure. An animal study is one way of randomizing the treatment (abortion) to matched pairs to determine if there were physical or psychological beneficial or damaging effects. A T maze would provide the opportunity to see if non aborted vs. post aborted mother rats more frequently chose to respond to their infants distressed cries or to the nice food at the other T maze choice. Having access to rat labs, knowing ready and willing veterinarians and being well trained to be the principal investigator, I have repeatedly offered to do this study with a representative sample of animals all to no avail. I had no offer from prolife or pro-choice advocates for funding.
- In response to the search question “induced abortion as treatment for surgical, medical psychiatric illness, PubMed found 11928 references. None of these addressed this question specifically. Most recent articles extolled the efficacy and safety of “medical abortions”.
- To the question: “Are abortions therapeutic for women”, according to PubMed, searching the largest medical library in the world there were 5201 references, none of which answered this question.
- To the question; “benefits to women from induced abortion”, PubMed found 243 references. None that I could detect answered this question.
- To the question, “mental health benefits from induced abortion” PubMed found 17 references, most of which are cited in this paper.
- The Royal College of Psychiatry in the UK (Ney 2011) made a most thorough study on the effects of abortion on woman’s mental health. They asked me to provide comments on their draft Position Paper. Some of my criticisms were accepted and they made some revisions. There was no evidence of mental health benefit from abortion in this review.
- The Royal College of Obstetrics and Gynecology (UK) wrote what they believed was the definitive opinion on abortion and its effects on women. I was also invited to comment (Ney 2011). There was no evidence of benefit from abortion in this complete analysis of research on the effects of abortion.
SUMMARY
This review was written to demonstrate that induced abortion has no footing in good science. It is drifting into greater a devil may care attitude where “if you can get away with legally doing it and if the public approves and if you can make easy money, why not do it. At least some women say you help them” which has become the prevailing ethic. This extensive review of the literature to find if there are any indications or benefits from abortion and the brief review of harms, (there are much more complete reviews available) should convince the reader that something has gone very badly wrong in medicine. To try to convince the public, government,
law courts and medical licensing bodies that they should correct this drastic distortion with conscience arguments has and will be totally ineffective. This is partly due to the obvious: people cannot agree on the definition of conscience and whose conscience will be the guide since every aborting doctor will eventually resort to, “Well, I was just following the dictates of my conscience when I aborted that baby. I sincerely believed it was the right thing to do”
The other reason not to use conscience to defend the good practices of diagnosis, support and treatment, is that most people don’t care enough to risk: reputation, advancement, house, family, freedom and life to defend the innocent and helpless and so they have become dehumanized. Dehumanized people cannot trust their own conscience. They realize how often they have rationalized to themselves and to others the selfishness and convenience of poor practice.
While the courts and the media are relatively honest, the only effective recourse to stop the needless murder of many millions of people at both ends of human life and the vulnerable handicapped in the middle, is to sue the offending physicians with malpractice and criminal assault, using scientifically established facts to convince judge and jury. I could describe one physician’s court experiences in 5 countries and attest that by God’s grace and wisdom and good lawyers, we won in about 70% of those actions. These results occurred mainly because the judges: could not avoid recognizing that those protesting outside an abortion clinic were attempting to perform their common citizen’s duty to warn women about to have an abortion of dire consequences of which they were ignorant. Almost always preaborting women did not understand that since abortions were unnecessary and only damaging, the abortionist was (to say the least) engaging in malpractice for which there should be compensation for damages to the women and not praise. Since abortionists are aware of the very thin ice of science upon which they skate and because no physician likes going to court, these actions, win or lose, have a strong salutary effect in favor for women, children, men and families.
The limited but representative research quoted above should make it clear something is drastically wrong with the current practice of medicine. There is an abundance of evidence that abortion is harmful and unnecessary. There is no evidence of necessity or benefit. And yet the burden of proof in medicine has always rested on those performing or promoting unproven procedures to repeatedly and substantially prove it is good and safe and needed by people. Isn’t it astonishing that a modern educated, thinking world would let physicians get away with this? Isn’t it time to shout in concert? “You must prove: i) She/he isn’t a human person that you are killing,
- ii) that abortion is necessary
iii) that abortion is good for women and families
- iv) abortion does not dehumanize us all.
Until you take this responsibility seriously, you must cease and desist “Why? Because that is the current practice of all other areas of medicine and it is the most reasonable, safest thing to do.”
Having done and published sufficiently good research on the effects of abortion for over ½ century, I am sure ( and not only one) that no complicit physician can claim “oh but I did not and could not know what was going on”. Time honored clinical practice insisted that if you came upon a toxic reaction to a new drug or a mal-practicing physician, you used both your science and conscience to shout “Stop”, take that drug off the market” or “Stop him/her (colleague) from doing that. It’s killing people.” To which the government and professional bodies would respond (at least at one time) with, “Yes, stop it until we determine if it is beneficial, safe and indicated “ These is one way of randomizing the treatment (abortion) to matched pairs in order to determine if there are physical or psychological beneficial or damaging effects.
A T maze would provide an objective chance to see if non- aborted vs. post- aborted mother rats more frequently chose to respond to their infant’s distressed cries or to the nice food at the other T maze choice. A controlled animal study would allow randomizing the treatment (abortion) that could never be done with humans. The data from 500 rats at various stages of pregnancy could produce convincing evidence and would be very economical.
Is it too late for this? Quite probably. At this moment in time I am faced with a quandary to: “tick their boxes and keep quiet” as I am advised by my lawyer and colleagues or speak up against bad medical practice and probably lose my license. Here is where my conscience and my God come into play. No one can compel me to use my art, wisdom and skill to harm people. So help me God. But in the realm of science and politics I will stubbornly use scientific arguments for science is so clearly on the side of life.
CONCLUSION
Induced abortion is clearly an approved medical procedure although it always and only harms women. In spite of the strong scientific evidence of many deleterious effects and the total lack of evidence for necessity and benefit, induced abortions are performed as if they improve women’s health. Medical licensing bodies have ignored the most basic tenets of evidence based medicine and provide a practice license to physicians who by inducing abortions only harm their patients.
Some governments force their citizens to pay taxes that fund these harmful procedures. Judges condone the aborting doctors even though it is clear they are legalizing a harmful only act. But is it possible to legalize a criminal act? Is it not aggravated assault to push a curette or suction into a woman’s uterus with no medical indication and no medical benefit? Is it not illegal for a physician to harm a person even if that patient consents and even if his/her country approves.
There have been few times in the history of modern medicine when a procedure, known to be only harmful was ever practiced as medically approved. The only country that legalized an entirely harmful procedure was Germany under the Nazis who “lawfully” gassed millions and used minorities and captives for “medical experiments” That country is now universally recognized as being uncivilized and/or unthinking to allow a socialist government to determine what is good for people with the assumption that what is good for the state will eventually be good for individuals. Now there are many countries which have become uncivilized through approving induced abortions upon a woman’s choice with no regard for whether or not is good for anybody. It is the same mantra used thru many centuries, “We, (the body politic), know what is good for you. We don’t need science to tell us. We (arrogant, ignorant politicians) know, we just know, what is good. So just check the boxes and shut up or we will punish you”. Sadly this threat has robbed most truth seeking people of their courage if not their brains thus preventing them from always using the best method possible to finding the truth however it may make people uncomfortable.
The practice of abortion has become so well accepted that anyone who recommends otherwise is considered unstable or of unsound mind. In this context, the least controversial, most medically proper recommendations are: 1) Provide funding to abortionists only upon the receipt of at least a 2 year follow-up showing benefit to each patient he/she aborted for whom they expect payment. 2) Government funding for longitudinal research (10yrs at least) of the effects of abortion vs. child birth. 3) Support for research on young people determining the effects of having Post Abortion Survivor Syndrome. 4. Insist that those who perform and/or support abortion accept the burden to prove the necessity and benefit and to demonstrate the scientific basis for their belief in the legitimacy of an unproven medical action. If nothing else, do an animal study for with it the physical harms and mental changes are easy to demonstrate.
The recommendation that best fits the time honored practice of good medicine is to suspend the practice of unnecessary induced abortion until such time as it is proven to be properly indicated for some diseases and clearly beneficial to patients. This is not likely to happen but being advocated, it puts the godly physician in the good light of being: always pro-life, pro-good medical practice, pro women and pro-wise-choices.
Is induced abortion ever good treatment? Never, well almost never. Why don’t I write never, never? Because to do so is not science. It is arrogance. It presupposes I know everything about every situation and I don’t. Although I have seriously studied this issue for over ½ a century, did plenty of research and had published what I could under very difficult conditions, taught it at every level of academia in 5 universities struggled over it in political arenas, ( ran in 6 elections) and trained post abortion therapists in about 40 countries, lost many hours of sleep and many good friends and prayed earnestly, I cannot say I know everything about induced abortion. I can with confidence write that I would never do an abortion for psychiatric reasons. I have often foolishly (perhaps) taunted my worthy opponents with, “ Show me a women who has a proper medical indication with probable measureable benefit in view and show me how and I will do the abortion” Although many would like this opportunity to humiliate me, in all the years of my practicing life, no one has accepted my challenge. And if all the necessary proper medical condition were met and I did an abortion, I would pray, “Dear Lord please forgive me for inadvertently killing your baby”. I know He would partly because He always does with no exceptions and partly because He knows I didn’t murder that child. Is there a distinction between killing and murdering? In this man’s deep ethics, yes, there is. Unlike an abortionist I did not intend to destroy that baby. I made every attempt not to. With the growing technology of artificial wombs and re-implantation into some receptive adopting mother, saving the baby is becoming more feasible. Using this almost complete review and argument, I hope all life- loving medical staff will adopt the same ethic. I will not say I will never abort because I don’t know everything, but I will insist that you unworthy aborting doctor must scientifically prove the medical reasons you do abortions. If you do not accept that challenge, I call you a thief and a liar. I will keep challenging you with research, on the streets, in legislatures and in the courts for you are murdering little people and deeply damaging their parents and sibling, in fact all of us. I cannot, will not let you get away with that, especially under the guise of doing “therapeutic abortions”. I call on you to cease and desist or face the God ordained miserable consequences in this life and here-after. And since I have interviewed many ex-abortionists, I know you know the doom awaiting you. Change your ways now because you will have to sooner than you think. As far as my ostensibly well- meaning God loving colleagues, you must also change. You cannot affirm that the preborn baby is a person and do so little to protect him and treat his parents without that inconsistency ruining your health, sanity and family. Like the abortionist, put up or shut up; you are doing much more harm than good by your cowardly inconsistencies. And don’t hide behind , “It’s against my conscience” It sounds so brave but it is meaningless. That argument and effort will get you and the babies nowhere. Stick to science. It is thoroughly, clearly on your prolife side. By being well informed scientifically, you can crush the arguments of the opposition. Besides remember that truth and gravity always win and it is nice to be on the winning side, is it not?
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TABLE I
RATE OF WOMEN BREASTFEEDING
Study 1 | Study 2 | |||||||||
% BREASTFEEDING | % BREASTFEEDING | |||||||||
AGE | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | n | AGE | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | n | |
20-24 | 22.5 | 15.7 | 6.7 | 152 | 20-24 | 14.4 | 13.0 | 0 | 131 | |
24-29 | 22.7 | 14.7 | 24.7 | 449 | 25-29 | 12.0 | 6.9 | 5.1 | 360 | |
30-34 | 31.6 | 21.2 | 24.6 | 292 | 30-34 | 15.6 | 6.0 | 6.7 | 245 | |
35-39 | 55.7 | 49.3 | 31.0 | 110 | 35-39 | 27.9 | 34.5 | 25.0 | 47 | |
40+ | 86.8 | 76.3 | 69.1 | 190 | 40+ | 83.7 | 66.7 | 62.5 | 43 | |
Total number = 1195 | Total number = 796 |