Social Worker at Planned Parenthood Tells of Woman Who Had Her 9th Abortion

National   |   Steven Ertelt   |   Dec 9, 2014   |   11:08AM   |   Washington, DC

The phenomenon of repeat abortions is one of the least-discussed aspects of the abortion debate. Despite the wide availability of contraception and non-abortifacient birth control, abortion is still used as a form of birth control.

Writing at LiveAction, LifeNews writer Sarah Terzo dug up a quote from a former Planned Parenthood abortion clinic employee about a woman who visited an abortion center in New York who was there for her 9th abortion.

In this article about abortion, a reporter makes the following observations at a Planned Parenthood abortion facility in New York called Margaret Sanger Center:

It is 3:30 and Nancy Todd, a social worker at Sanger, is exhausted. Today she saw a 14-year-old girl who came in for an abortion but knew nothing about what the procedure entailed. There was a woman in her late 20s who came in for her ninth abortion, with whom Todd had a long discussion about birth control.

Source: “Abortion in America, Focus on the City; Center’s Moments of Pain, Conflict, Relief” Newsday (New York) 1989

ultrasound4d53Repeat abortions are not uncommon, according to a leading abortion research institute that supports abortion and was once affiliated with Planned Parenthood. According to the Alan Guttmacher Institute, approximately 45 percent of abortions are repeat abortions.

In New York City itself, repeat abortions come in at a high clip and are paid for at taxpayer expense. The Chiaroscuro Foundation asked for information from the city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene about the number of repeat abortions and it found that, in 2009, 48,627 of the 87,273 abortions in New York City, or 56%, were repeat abortions and 33,401, 38%, were paid for by Medicaid.

Meanwhile, repeat abortions take their toll on women’s health. study, co-authored by Elliot Institute director Dr. David Reardon, found that women who undergo abortions have an increased risk of death:

A single induced abortion increases the risk of maternal death by 45 percent compared to women with no history of abortion, according to a new study of all women of reproductive age in Denmark over a 25 year period.

In addition, each additional abortion is associated with an even higher death rate. Women who had two abortions were 114 percent more likely to die during the period examined, and women had three or more abortions had a 192 percent increased risk of death. …

“We knew from our previous studies of low income women in California that women who have multiple pregnancy outcomes, such as having a history of both abortion and miscarriage, have significantly different mortality rates,” Reardon said. “But this new study is the first to examine how each experience with abortion or miscarriage contributes to higher mortality rates.”

This is called a “dose effect” because “each exposure, or ‘dose,’ is seen to produce more of the same effect, which is what one would expect if there is a cause-effect relationship,” Reardon explained.

The other new study found that women who undergo multiple abortions have an increased risk of preterm birth and low-birthweight babies in a subsequent pregnancy :

The study, printed in the peer-reviewed medical journal Human Reproduction, of more than 300,000 women found women who have three or more abortions face a 35 percent increase in health complications in a future pregnancy and also saw an increase in the risk of a baby’s death around the time of birth.Having just one abortion or more increased the likelihood of giving birth before reaching 37 weeks of pregnancy.

“To put these risks into perspective, for every 1,000 women, three who have had no abortion will have a baby born under 28 weeks,” Dr Reija Klemetti, who led the study, told the Scotsman newspaper. “This rises to four women among those who have had one abortion, six women who have had two abortions, and 11 women who have had three or more.”