One in Three Pregnancies End in Abortion in Detroit

State   |   Rebecca Downs   |   May 27, 2014   |   3:34PM   |   Detroit, MI

Detroit is the most dangerous city to be a child in the United States. And with its abortion rate, this includes those unborn children in the womb as well. While the abortion rate for the United States and Michigan as a state have decreased, 31 percent of pregnancies for 2012 ended in abortion in Detroit. While experts regard this as problematic, their solutions to decreasing the rates may not be the answer.

Such shocking and tragic news was reported by The Detroit News. Included is a statement from Dr. Susan Schooley, chairwoman of the Department of Family Medicine at Henry Ford Hospital, who says that Detroit is “seeing a picture that looks more like some Third-World country than someplace in the United States.”

prolifeimage47The reporting does contain heavy emphasis on birth control and problematic statements on abortion, from experts nonetheless. Bill Albert, the chief program officer for National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy seems to not know, or more likely, disregards the concept of risk compensation and the connection between birth control and abortion, including the slippery slope of emergency contraception and long-term birth control, as both forms can cause very early abortions:

“What has been striking has been the … conflation of contraception with abortion,” Albert said. “State and national policy makers, some of them, use these words interchangeably.”

Dr. Jay Berman, chief of gynecology at DMC Hutzel Hospital and division chief for gynecology at Wayne State University Medical School points to long-term contraceptives and ObamaCare as “[u]ltimately the (Affordable Care Act) is going to have an impact on the abortion rates.” He also claims that abortion is safe and do not lead to further complications, even with multiple abortions. Berman also regards the “stress” of pregnancy together with abortion:

Berman noted that legal abortion is a safe procedure. He said the general consensus among physicians is that abortions — even multiple abortions — do not lead to premature birth or other complications with future pregnancies.

“We certainly would like to reduce that number,” Berman said. “There’s physical stress, but there is psychological stress as well. (Unplanned pregnancy) has an effect on plans for education, for work. Women don’t take these choices very lightly. It certainly has an emotional and psychological (effect).”

Studies would go against Berman and his so-called “general consensus among physicians…” including when it comes to multiple abortions. Also curiously mentioned is that “[t]he highest number of deaths occur in the first year, most related to premature birth.” Despite what Berman may claim, such deaths could very well be a result of the high abortion rate, for those women giving birth who have had abortions previously.

And, while the piece does report such (mis)information on the safety and risks of abortion, it does include a quote from Loretta Davis, president and CEO of Detroit’s Institute for Population Health, regarding the “increasing abortion rate [as] represent[ing] a ‘public health failure.’” And Schooley, who is mentioned earlier in the piece, also refers to abortion as “…one lousy choice.”

As mentioned, the idea of risk compensation is completely ignored when it comes to promoting birth control. Are such impoverished women being taught how to use their birth control properly, in addition to being sent off to not bring any more children into such a place? And even if birth control is used correctly, what about for those whom it fails? The Guttmacher Institute, which itself is in favor of abortion, reports that 51% of women who sought an abortion had already been on birth control. Like abortion being regarded as a “quick fix,” it seems like those seeking to improve Detroit’s abortion rates are looking to another kind of such fix, in the form of birth control.

The piece mentions that there is a “direct correlation between abortion and poverty,” according to national studies. Abortion does not improve a woman’s situation of poverty, but rather often brings upon a whole other host of problems, regardless as to what experts in this piece may say.

Pregnancy centers, however, help women with providing housing, basic needs of food and clothing, and even assist women in finding a job. They enable women to keep their children as well as get out of poverty, taking away the excuse of poverty and economic hardship as a common reason to have an abortion.

The only person who is mentioned as having personal experience with abortion herself, Penelope Allen, had an abortion when she was 15. She has a daughter, Patience, who is almost 2 and is actually credited for enabling Penelope to make it with her life when she says “[m]y daughter, it was her, she helped me get my life on track.”

It would seem then that Detroit is failing not only on an economic level, but on a cultural level as well when it cannot stand to support a culture of life. How can such a city have hope when it kills off its future before they have the chance to be born? This is especially the case when the consensus seems to be to merely fix the situation with free birth control.