Ted Cruz: “Pregnancy is Not an Illness and Abortion Does Not Cure or Prevent Any Disease”

National   |   Micaiah Bilger   |   Sep 3, 2020   |   1:35PM   |   Washington, DC

Abortion activists are slamming pro-life U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz for stating that abortions are not health care and pregnancy is not a disease.

Earlier this week, the Texas Republican and 91 other members of Congress asked the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to remove the dangerous abortion drug mifepristone, or Mifeprex, from the market.

“Pregnancy is not a life-threatening illness, and the abortion pill does not cure or prevent any disease. Make no mistake, Mifeprex is a dangerous pill. That’s why … my Republican colleagues and I are urging the FDA to classify it as such,” Cruz said Wednesday.

Abortion activists, who are demanding that the FDA to allow mail-order abortion drugs, quickly twisted Cruz’s words, claiming he said pregnancy is never life threatening, and then attacked him for it.

The New Civil Rights Movement labeled Cruz’s statement a “misogynistic lie” and pointed to a long list of profanity-laced tweets from pro-abortion feminists directed at the pro-life senator.

Jessica Valenti, a prominent pro-abortion writer, had some not-so-nice words for Cruz.

“On behalf of the *many* women for whom pregnancy has been life threatening, f— you,” she responded on Twitter.

Another pro-abortion writer Amee Vanderpool told Cruz to “mind your own uterus,” arguing that abortion is legal and many women die giving birth.

SUPPORT LIFENEWS! If you like this pro-life article, please help LifeNews.com with a donation!

Elizabeth Spiers, editor in chief of the New York Observer, called Cruz a “dope” and said she almost feels sorry for his wife.

“GOP men love demonstrating their total ignorance of the female reproductive system in public,” Spiers wrote on Twitter. “(I’d feel sorry for their wives, but they voluntarily married these dopes.) Pregnancy is very much a life threatening condition for a lot of women. Ask anyone who’s had HELLP syndrome.”

And commenter Laura Chapin cited a study claiming that childbirth is 14 times more dangerous than abortion, adding, “Go f— yourself, Ted.”

Of course, Cruz did not say that pregnancies are never life-threatening, nor did the other 91 male and female pro-life lawmakers who signed the letter to the FDA. He said pregnancy in and of itself is not a life-threatening illness, and abortion drugs are not a “cure.”

Abortions do not save lives. They destroy them. The abortion drug mifepristone has been used to end more than 3.7 million unborn babies’ lives and led to 24 maternal deaths and at least 4,195 complications since it was approved under pro-abortion President Bill Clinton’s administration in 2000.

It is not accurate to say that abortion is safer for the woman, either. At the very least, researchers point out that the U.S. does not collect enough data from abortion facilities to make that conclusion. Several European studies have refuted the claim even further, concluding that more women die after abortions than childbirth.

In 2016, Anna Paprocki, an attorney at Americans United for Life, wrote an article explaining how U.S. abortion data is incomplete and unreliable. This makes it hard to make any conclusions regarding the safety of abortion, she wrote.

Dr. Byron Calhoun, vice chair of West Virginia University-Charleston’s Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, published research in 2013 to explain how little data Americans have about abortion complications and maternal deaths. He wrote in the Catholic medical journal Linacre Quarterly:

There are numerous and complicated methodological factors that make a valid scientific assessment of abortion mortality extremely difficult. Among the many factors responsible are incomplete reporting, definitional incompatibilities, voluntary data collection, research bias, reliance upon estimations, political correctness, inaccurate and/or incomplete death certificate completion, incomparability with maternal mortality statistics, and failing to include other causes of death such as suicides. Given the importance of this disclosure about abortion mortality, the lack of credible and reliable scientific evidence supporting this representation requires substantial discussion.

Studies that claim to show abortions are safer than childbirth tend to be biased. They come from pro-abortion organizations or abortionists themselves who have a financial interest in the outcome.

In contrast, a comprehensive study of medical records in Denmark found the opposite to be true: “Compared to women who delivered, women who had an early or late abortion had significantly higher mortality rates within 1 through 10 years.” The study was published in the Medical Science Monitor in 2012.

There also is evidence that legalizing abortion does not reduce maternal mortality rates. Before Ireland legalized abortion in 2018, research showed that maternal mortality rates were lower there than in neighboring countries where abortion is legal. A study from Chile also found that maternal mortality declined because of better access to health care, not changes in the country’s abortion laws.

Abortions also can harm the health of future children. A recent study from the Acta Obstetricia et Gynecologica Scandinavica in Finland found that abortions can lead to an increased risk of preterm birth and low birth weight in future children. Previous studies found similar results.

Cruz and other pro-life politicians are working to save lives by calling on the FDA to remove the abortion drug mifepristone from the market. They know the truth. Women do not need to abort their unborn babies to be healthy.