A new article by “Parents” magazine misleads readers about late-term abortions in the United States.
Author Emily Shiffer claimed the intent of her article is to “clear up the confusion” about terms in the abortion debate, but she relied solely on “experts” who have a clear, biased agenda in the abortion debate.
One of them, Gillian Dean, M.D., MPH, is the senior director of medical services at Planned Parenthood, the largest abortion provider in America. Its latest annual report boasted a record $1.66 billion in revenue and more than 330,000 abortions.
Dean accused pro-lifers of making up terms like “late-term abortion” to “stigmatize ending a pregnancy.”
“To be clear: There is no such thing as an abortion up until birth, and ‘late-term abortion’ is not a term used by reputable health care providers,” Dean said.
Another “expert,” Daniel Grossman, M.D., a well-known pro-abortion researcher and activist at the University of California San Francisco, said people usually use the term late-term abortion to mean after 12 weeks of pregnancy.
Chelsea Souder, MPH, yet another “expert” abortion activist with AbortionClinics.org, said they talk about abortions in terms of the trimester.
“We talk about care as pregnancy progresses in weeks from a person’s last menstrual period, or in trimesters (1st: 0-13 weeks, 2nd: 14-26 weeks, 3rd: 27-40 weeks),” she said.
LifeNews and other pro-life groups often use both gestational ages, when possible, and the phrase late-term abortion to refer to unborn babies who are aborted usually after 18-20 weeks of pregnancy.
But readers of the “Parents” article may come away thinking unborn babies almost never are aborted at late stages of pregnancy and, when they are, there always are severe health circumstances.
Media outlets routinely describe the number of late-term abortions as “very rare,” citing the fact that they account for about 1.3 percent of all abortions in the U.S. However, the percentage minimizes the actual numbers.
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There are more than 12,000 abortions annually after 20 weeks of pregnancy, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a pro-abortion research group. The mainstream media does not refer to the number of children who die annually in car crashes (about 4,000), gun violence (about 3,000), or childhood cancers (about 2,000) as “very rare.” Yet, each of these tragic numbers is only a fraction of the 12,000 children aborted late in pregnancy.
Like many media outlets, the “Parents” article also claimed that these “rare” abortions typically occur because of serious fetal anomalies or medical complications involving the mother. This is not true, either.
Dean, who makes a living aborting unborn babies, told the magazine: “In rare and very complex circumstances, abortions may be necessary later on in a pregnancy—such as when there are severe fetal anomalies or serious risks to the pregnant person’s health. These unexpected and potentially life-threatening complications are why it’s critical that patients and doctors have the option of abortion later in pregnancy.”
But the Planned Parenthood director left open the possibility of abortions for any reason up to birth when she said, “Ultimately, the decision to end a pregnancy depends on a person’s unique circumstances, and should be between them and their doctors.”
Abortion lobbyists have admitted that most late-term abortions are done on healthy mothers carrying healthy babies. Guttmacher Institute statistics also confirm that “most women seeking later terminations are not doing so for reasons of fetal anomaly or life endangerment.” Instead, data suggest that “most women seeking later abortion fit at least one of five profiles: They were raising children alone, were depressed or using illicit substances, were in conflict with a male partner or experiencing domestic violence, had trouble deciding and then had access problems, or were young and nulliparous.”
Americans deserve to know the truth that late-term abortions for any reason through all nine months of pregnancy are legal in some states. Viable, healthy unborn babies are being aborted, and the abortion lobby continuously misleads the public to hide the disturbing fact.
