Abortion activists celebrated Friday as International Safe Abortion Day, ignoring how abortions are intrinsically violent and destructive.
This year, they used the day to recycle the old, long refuted claims that women are safer when abortion is legal.
Writing for the Huffington Post UK, Lesley Regan, a professor and president of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, estimated there are about 25 million “unsafe” abortions every year – unsafe for the mother, that is. She never mentioned the safety of the unborn child.
“Today marks International Safe Abortion Day of action for access to safe and legal abortion,” Regan wrote. “Access to safe, legal and compassionate abortion care saves the lives of girls and women.”
She argued that legalizing and promoting abortion as a safe option will help women across the world, writing:
Almost every death and disability from an unsafe abortion could be prevented through comprehensive relationship and sex education, access to high quality family planning, including effective contraception, and safe, legal, and timely abortion care. But in many countries across the world, girls and women meet barriers that make these crucial healthcare services non-existent or difficult to access. These barriers include restrictive laws, poor availability of these essential services, stigma, and conscientious objection of healthcare professionals.
Though she did not cite studies or data, she claimed abortions are less safe in countries where they are illegal. However, she also noted (without a citation) that “more than half of all estimated unsafe abortions occur in Asia.”
It is interesting because abortions are legal and widely available in many Asian countries. Notably, China has some of the most pro-abortion laws in the world; women can abort unborn babies for any reason up to birth. This seems to contradict her argument about safety being tied to legalized abortions.
American health statistics also do not support her claim. CDC reports and journal articles by Planned Parenthood leaders prior to Roe v. Wade indicate that very few women were dying from illegal abortions. A Center for Disease Control report noted 39 women died from illegal abortions in 1972, the year prior to Roe.
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And after Roe, women continue to die from “safe,” legal abortions. As of 2008, the CDC reported more than 400 women died from legal abortions in the United States, including 12 that year. The most recent annual report from the CDC says four women died from abortion complications in 2013. However, there could be more.
LifeNews has reported on the deaths of several women after legal abortions in the past few years. They include:
- Keisha Marie Atkins, 23, who died on Feb. 4, 2017 after having her late-term unborn baby aborted at Southwestern Women’s Options in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Her family is suing the abortion facility.
- Cree Erwin who died three days after aborting her unborn baby at a Planned Parenthood in Kalamazoo, Michigan in 2016
- Jaimie Lee Morales, 30, who died on July 9, 2016 from a botched abortion at Liberty Women’s Health Care in Flushing, New York City. The abortionist, Robert Rho, pleaded guilty to felony negligent homicide earlier this year in Morales’ death. (pictured)
- Lakisha Wilson who died after a botched abortion at an Ohio facility in 2014
- Jennifer McKenna Morbelli, 29, who died in 2013 after a late-term abortion at the Germantown Reproductive Health Center in Maryland
- Maria Santiago who died Feb. 15, 2013 after an abortion at the Associates in OB/GYN Care in Baltimore, Maryland
- Tonya Reaves, 22, who bled to death after a Chicago Planned Parenthood clinic botched her abortion in 2012
- Aisha Chithira who died in a taxi in 2012 soon after leaving a Marie Stopes abortion facility in Ealing, England
There likely are more not discovered by pro-lifers or reported to the CDC. In 2015, pro-lifers with Helpers of God’s Precious Infants also suspected that a woman died from a botched abortion at an abortion facility in San Diego, California.
Women do not need better access to abortion or less restrictive abortion laws. Abortion and safety do not go together. The purpose of an abortion is to kill a unique, living human being in the womb. Nearly 1 million unborn babies are legally aborted annually in the U.S. alone. And no one truly knows how many women have been injured or killed as well.
