They Say Abortion Is About the “Safety” of Women – An Unsubstantiated Argument

In my February 28th blog, I shared an encouraging report on the younger generation – students standing up for traditional marriage.  Now I want to tell you about some Students for Life of America who are launching a ground-breaking new touring campaign that asks – “What has Roe done for us?”  They will reach 26-campuses, in 20-states breaking down the abortion industry's fear tactic and that old stand-by argument they bust out whenever the pro-abortionists begin to lose a debate on abortion.  The goal of these young people is to not just make abortion an unthinkable option in the mind of every American nor to dramatically reduce the number of abortions, but to make abortion illegal.

 

Many pro-life Americans have trouble envisioning such a future where every American, born or preborn, is welcomed in life and protected by law; a future where we go back to an America where preborn children are protected members of our society.  These students urge us to move forward into an America that seeks to really help those women facing an unplanned, crisis pregnancy … ensuring she has the support and resources she needs to parent or place her child with an adoptive family.  Their campaign longs to paint this vision, so that others will see the possibility of what is to come and join their human rights campaign.

 

They appear to be well aware of the initial need to dispel the 41-year old fear tactic that Planned Parenthood and their allies love to propagate - that abortion must be legal, in order to be “safe” for women; to protect women from dying in back alleys.  Even though the majority of Americas now reject abortion, many have been sold the bill-of-goods that we must accept abortion in order to protect women.  The students argue that simply is not the case; it's time we stop backing away from the fear tactic and engage in the debate.

 

Part of their campaign is 13-billboards focusing not on the preborn baby who dies in every abortion; but on the mother.  Their wall of victims doesn't list the name of every baby killed by legal abortion; instead, it lists the name of every mother.  The tour walks women through a conversation about abortion.  They show her what Roe v. Wade has given us, pointing out that suicide rates among aborting women are 6-times higher than those who give birth; showing her that 53 out of 68 worldwide studies have proven that abortion increases a woman's risk for breast cancer; and highlighting the undisputed fact that abortion significantly increases her risk for pre-term delivery in future pregnancies. They ask her to consider who is really profiting from her crisis by showing off Planned Parenthood's own 2011-2012 Annual Report … where they boasted they had received over $542,000,000 in taxpayer funds, committing over 333,964 abortions for a profit of over $150,600,000.

 

They dispel the myth of the back-alley abortion and the myth that tens of thousands of women were dying from illegal abortion before Roe v. Wade … by showing her the real stats.  They list the Center for Disease Control's own 1972 report which tracked 39-deaths from illegal abortions and 24-deaths from legal abortion, a year before Roe v. Wade; and Planned Parenthood former director's, Mary Calderon, statement in 1960 remarking that 90% of illegal abortions were being performed by licensed physicians.

 

They break down the common argument that abortion is needed to make pregnancy safe by pointing out that despite having the world's most liberal abortion laws, America has the highest maternal death rate for any industrialized nation; and those nations like Chile, which ban abortion, have the lowest maternal mortality in the Americas.

 

They ask her if she thinks abortion exploits women, showing her the studies that found that 64% of women who had abortions felt pressured or forced by others, and that proved that murder is the leading cause of death among pregnant women.  They introduce her to Dr. Kermit Gosnell and his Philadelphia ‘House of Horrors,’ and other celebrated abortionists with a history of killing women and profiting from their crisis.  And finally, they memorialize women killed by legal abortion.

 

So the next time you are in a discussion about ending abortion, remember that tired, old argument that abortion must be legal to be “safe” is nothing more than a fear tactic.  Abortion is never safe, legal or illegal.

 

Rev. Dr. Kenneth L. Beale, Jr.

Chaplain (Colonel-Ret), U.S. Army

Pastor, Ft. Snelling Memorial Chapel