"Do you want to return to the butchery of self-induced or back-alley abortions? Keep abortions safe and legal." The right to legal abortion is crucial to the health and well-being of American women. This fundamental right is guaranteed by the U.S. Supreme Court decision of January 22, 1973, which: Affirms every woman's right to end an unwanted pregnancy safely and legally. Affirms that women need no longer be forced by desperation into the horror of underworld abortion."9 "Desperate women will get abortions in any case. Let us keep them legal so that they are safe, so that women are not forced into the horrors of back-alley abortionists. Or to self-induced abortions by coat hangers!"
"Keep abortion safe and legal." First, legal abortion is not safe for the child! The idea of a "safe" abortion can arise only if the reality of the child is overlooked.
The force of this argument is its own destruction. It is the horror of death and mutilation for women at the hands of back-alley butchers. But this is precisely the horror that is repeated in every abortion! That is why every abortion, legal or illegal, must be prevented at all costs. The true response to back-alley abortions is to be outraged at all abortions, to condemn all abortions - not to propose one kind (legal) in place of another (illegal). The very evil that the argument appeals to is the essence of every abortion. And for this reason every abortion must be condemned, morally and by the law.
The "back-alley" argument for legal abortion is a contradiction. It is the argument, "We should allow abortion so that women are not killed." But, since abortion is itself killing, the argument reads: "We should allow killing so that there is no killing."
We cannot legalize murder. To appeal to terrible side effects for the person ordering the murder is not an argument. It does not justify the murder. Mary Ann Warren, who advocates the right to abortion, is clear on this point: "The fact that restricting access to abortion has tragic side effects [i.e.. death due to illegal abortions] does not in itself show that the restrictions are unjustified, since murder is wrong regardless of the consequences of prohibiting it."10
The "back-alley" argument is not really an argument, either for the moral rightness of abortion or for its legalization, but merely a threat: "Give us legal abortions, or else." A law protecting preborn children is a just law. Everyone ought to obey it. Pointing to the hazards of disobeying the law is no more valid in this case than it would be in any other.
There is a second major reply to the appeal to "safe abortion": legal abortion is not safe for the woman. Reardon's research reveals a frightening fact: "Legalization has improved the odds that an individual will survive an abortion, but the astronomical increase in the number of abortions performed means that more women are dying. The percentage chance of survival is improved, but the absolute number of those who suffer has increased!"11
He goes on to add that this increase in suffering applies also to abortion complications and that one must also include "the deaths which are indirectly caused by abortion," namely future wanted babies: "Each year approximately 100,000 'wanted' pregnancies will end in the sorrow of a spontaneous miscarriage because of latent abortion morbidity." 12
Keeping abortion illegal is better for women: "The number of women dying and suffering from physical complications alone far exceeds the number who would have suffered similarly if abortion had remained illegal. Rather than reducing the pain and suffering of women, legalization of abortion has increased it by exposing many more women to its inherent risks. The only difference is that now the pain and suffering can be antiseptically ignored because it is 'legal.'"13
These numbers are based on reported deaths, and, as I noted before, "the reported rate of deaths due to legal abortion is being deliberately kept low through selective underreporting."14
As an example, Reardon mentions a Los Angeles doctor, Lester Hibbard, who was "charged with keeping track of maternal deaths." While "four abortion-related deaths [were] officially reported as such," Dr. Hibbard said that "he personally knew of at least four other deaths which had followed legal abortions but had not been reported as such on the death certificates. Furthermore, he said he was certain that these unreported abortion deaths were only the tip of the iceberg."15
Reardon reports, "According to one estimate, less than 10% of deaths from legal abortion are reported as such."16
Women are suffering and dying from legal abortions partly because abortion is inherently unsafe for the woman, an assault on her, and partly because, in many cases, the staff at legal abortion centers can be as dangerous (or nearly so) to the woman's health as some of the infamous "back-alley" abortionists at illegal abortion centers. Reardon presents a frightening array of data:
Abortion clinics routinely hire low-cost, unskilled staff members to fulfill the quasi-medical tasks normally performed by physicians or nurses.... There are no educational or certification requirements for abortion clinic personnel.... The depth of knowledge which abortion staff members have, therefore, is generally far below the usual standards of the medical and nursing professions.17 In the typical abortion clinic, these staff members counsel the patients about the procedure, examine the patients, estimate gestation, perform any required tests (e.g., pregnancy tests and blood samples), record vital signs, prepare the patients for surgery, and assist patients through the recovery room.... By delegating responsibility and minimizing patient/doctor interaction, abortionists free themselves to work solely on performing the actual abortion in the least amount of time possible. 18
As a result of cost-efficient measures, most clinics do not have transfusion supplies and blood type selections available, even though 2 to 12 percent of aborted women bleed enough to warrant a transfusion.19
"Keep abortion safe and legal." And, "Let us not return to the days of back-alley abortionists." How do these phrases square with the reality of legal abortion? Reardon explains: "To increase profits even further, abortionists try to work as fast as possible in order to handle as many patients per day as possible. Besides the obvious risks in hurrying a blind operation which involves sharp instruments and vacuum pressures capable of tearing out organs, the rush for efficiency often results in 'cutting comers' on normal sanitation standards."20
The Chicago Sun-Times series shocked readers with the fact that many abortions were being performed by "moonlighting residents, [and] general practitioners with little or no training in women's medicine." But once again this "revelation" was not unique to the four Chicago clinics which were investigated. Instead the use of such "untrained" abortionists is perfectly legal and commonplace.21 Abortionists are essentially free of oversight by state and local governments or even by state medical boards. Even if an abortionist causes numerous complications or deaths, there is no mechanism to prevent him from continuing to perform abortions short of imprisonment for criminal neglect.22 Both illegal abortions and legal abortions are dangerous for women, legal abortions being somewhat safer. Most women wanting abortions are dissuaded from seeking them if they are illegal. ("75 percent said they definitely would not have sought an illegal abortion."23) What, then, is the actual implication of the appeal to keeping abortion legal for the sake of safety? It would mean increasing the safety margin for a small group of women - 25% or so who would resort to it in defiance of the law - while at the same time opening the floodgates of massive destruction for millions of preborn children and an increase in suffering and death for women as a whole. Legalization improves the odds that an individual woman will survive an abortion, but the astronomical increase in the number of abortions performed means that more women are dying.
A word about self-induced abortions by coat hangers. Here too the force of the argument is its own destruction. The horror of a woman killed by a coat hanger is repeated in every abortion, with the child the victim of a horrible death. If the woman should not be killed by one instrument of death, a coat hanger, then neither should the child be killed by another. We cannot legalize murder in order to dissuade people from choosing particularly dangerous forms of carrying it out.
In addition, coat hangers will be a thing of the past, replaced by new forms of abortion, such as an abortion pill.
Finally, "a return to illegal abortions" for those who choose to defy the law "does not mean that there would be a return to the death and complication rates of illegal abortion prior to 1973," when abortion was legalized throughout the United States. "Instead, the complication and death rates would be much lower" because of improvements in "medical care for abortion complications" and in "the abortion techniques used ... illegal abortionists would continue to use the suction curettage that is used in legal abortion clinics today." This means that "illegal abortions performed by physician/abortionists will be no more dangerous than legal abortion - they will only be far less common, and that alone will save lives and reduce complications."24
Fewer women proportionately are dying from abortions now than before, not because of legalization, but because of improvements in medicine. Dr. Willke tells us: "With penicillin, the number [of deaths] dropped sharply. . . . " The general decline in deaths "was clearly due to better antibiotics, the establishment of intensive care units, better surgical techniques, etc."25
The actual number of women who died from illegal abortions prior to legalization is far lower than is sometimes claimed by pro-abortion groups. Dr. Bernard Nathanson, in the past a leader in the effort to legalize abortion, and now a leading opponent of abortion, tells in Aborting America the story of his struggles and his profound change, and that the high figures were an outright lie.
When we spoke of the [number of deaths from illegal abortions] it was always "5,000 to 10,000 deaths a year." I confess that I knew the figures were totally false, and I suppose the others did too.... But in the "morality" of our revolution, it was a useful figure, widely accepted.... The overriding concern was to get the laws eliminated, and anything within reason that had to be done was permissible.26 Keeping in mind that not all abortion deaths are reported, it is still of some interest to see what the reported figures are: "In 1967.... the federal government listed only 160 deaths from illegal abortion. In the last year before ... [abortion was legalized throughout the country], 1972, the total was only 39 deaths."27
Abortion Laws Unenforceable
"Laws prohibiting abortion are not enforceable. Desperate women, denied legal abortions, will find ways to obtain abortions in other ways. Trying to ban abortion is like trying to ban alcohol: it would be Prohibition all over again. The law would be flouted, creating disrespect for law in general."
It is simply not true that the prohibition of abortion is not enforceable. Abortion "clinics" could be shut down; hospitals now performing abortions could be prevented from doing so; doctors could be prosecuted, jailed, and barred from practicing. Those who counseled women to have abortions, and those who assisted at them, could be prosecuted. For most of our history, until very recently, abortion was illegal. Those who committed this crime were prosecuted. The child in the womb received legal protection in the past; what was unjustly taken away from him should now be restored to him.
Perhaps what the objection has in mind is that there would be widespread resistance to outlawing abortion. That should not be a factor in deciding law. "We will protect you as long as it is not too difficult to do so, as long as such a measure meets with popular approval." Imagine saying this to a minority suffering discrimination. Persons must be given equality before the law because it is demanded by justice, not because (or only if) it is easy.
The protection of certain rights is more difficult to enforce than that of others. It is easier to protect a person's right not to be beaten or killed in a public place than it is to protect the right of a child against child abuse at home. But the law must stand with equal clarity and firmness in both cases. The case of the child in the womb is similar to the child at home: both are more difficult to protect than an adult or child in a public place. But the essential point remains, that both should be protected, and protected equally.
"Desperate women will flout the law and try to have abortions anyway." In general, some people desperate to do something prohibited by law will try to do it anyway, and some of them will succeed. This is surely not a reason to have no law. Consider rape. Some desperate men will commit this crime anyway, even though it is illegal. Making rape illegal does not eliminate it. However different the psychology and motivation may be in the two cases, the effects on the victim are comparable: a violation of the intimacy and integrity of an innocent person. Such attacks on the person must be prohibited by law, that some people will disobey the law is tragic, but is not the point here.
Most women are not "desperate women (who] will flout the law." As was cited above, seventy-five percent of women seeking legal abortion .said they definitely would not have sought an illegal abortion." These are the women who are, to a large extent, "protected from being pressured into an abortion" by its illegality.28
Trying to outlaw abortion is like bringing Prohibition back."29 This is simply not true, for a number of reasons. First, the aim of Prohibition was to prohibit the consumption of alcoholic beverages. This is largely a private matter, where the state has no clear and evident right to interfere. In direct contrast to this, abortion is not a private matter, but the killing of one person by others.
Second, even if prohibition of alcohol were justified, it would not be required as a fundamental principle of law. Prohibiting murder, all murder, is required as a fundamental principle of law.
Third, a basic defect of Prohibition (of alcohol) was the confusion between a practice and its abuse. What Prohibition wanted to eliminate was the abuse of alcohol; what it actually prohibited was alcohol itself. No such confusion, or even distinction, exists in regard to abortion. It is abortion itself that is a terrible crime; there is no question of any abuse.
Finally. there is the charge that making abortion illegal would mean widespread flouting of the law, and a consequent loss of respect for the law. On the contrary, when the law fails to recognize a whole class of human beings as persons before the law, when it fails to protect their rights, it invites disrespect. The law must protect all fundamental human rights. It cannot hesitate in one area out of fear of disrespect.
"Do you want to return to the butchery of self-induced or back-alley abortions? Keep abortions safe and legal." The right to legal abortion is crucial to the health and well-being of American women. This fundamental right is guaranteed by the U.S. Supreme Court decision of January 22, 1973, which: Affirms every woman's right to end an unwanted pregnancy safely and legally. Affirms that women need no longer be forced by desperation into the horror of underworld abortion."9 "Desperate women will get abortions in any case. Let us keep them legal so that they are safe, so that women are not forced into the horrors of back-alley abortionists. Or to self-induced abortions by coat hangers!"