Exercising their “Right to Choose,” many young women have fallen prey to less-than-health-promoting medical care when they go in for abortions. Many such women are already victims, sometimes of dysfunctional homes or statutory rape or even molestation. They often lack the kind of physical, emotional, and financial maturity and stability that would enable them to raise a child. Instead of helping these girls deal with the trauma leading to their unplanned pregnancies and preparing them to make informed decisions, “pro-choice” advocates steer them straight toward abortionists, misleading them to think that this “procedure” will have no lasting results.
Sometimes a woman’s parents, molester, or boyfriend insist on an abortion, leading the mother to think that she has no say. She needs to know that she has the ultimate power to choose her baby’s fate; no one has the right to decide that for her. Abortion-alternative pregnancy centers can help give her a safe place to stay and prenatal care, if she decides to keep the baby and lacks the support she needs. They can either guide her through the process of choosing her child’s adoptive family through open adoption or help prepare and mentor her as she takes on the challenge of motherhood herself.
While many women know that one-time black-market abortions often bore difficult consequences, they do not realize that even legal, clinical abortions come with risks. In 1990, abortionist Dr. Abu Hayat was revealed to have amputated the arm of a little girl he failed to abort. Once Donohue interviewed Ana Rosa’s parents, more victims of his clinic came forward. Stories of sexual abuse, malpractice, and unethical business practices would be eclipsed by the story of a 17-year-old patient of his whom he sent home to die after complications relating to an abortion he performed.
Another NAF (National Abortion Federation) member, Dr. Abraham Alberto Hodari, has been cited for similar offenses. Accusations of results of his care include many fatalities, incomplete abortions, hysterectomies, and other surgeries stemming from abortions he performed.
The kinds of violations of proper health care practice that have led to deaths and other risk-infused practices of doctors like Hodari and Hayat are unfortunately far from rare. As one journalist put it, “Legal abortion has moved from the back alley to the front parlor. The process is still unsafe, only the profits are a lot bigger.”
Even if an abortion is performed in a sterile, safe environment under the care of ethical physicians, the long-term effects can include physical and emotional trauma much later in life. Women considering abortions have a right to be informed and to be faced with the implications of their choices. Once they understand the risks and issues involved, they should be assured that their choice is simply that: It’s theirs, and no one else’s.
Related posts:
