“Shouldn't We Permit Abortion Only to Save the Life of the Mother?"

Abortion is completely legal in more than one hundred nations.  In almost every case, population controllers first drove in the ultra-thin wedge of an abortion exception just to save the life of the mother.

This is a brilliant strategy for two reasons.

First, abortionists can easily stretch any law, no matter how strict or precisely written, into abortion on demand.  Since they falsely consider abortion to be safer than childbirth, pro-abortionists can easily justify all abortions under the “life of the mother” exception.  In fact, abortionists have claimed that all abortions are medically necessary.

This is certainly not a new development.  For example, in 1980 abortionist Lise Fortier asserted that "Each and every pregnancy threatens a woman's life.  From a strict medical viewpoint, every pregnancy should be aborted."1  Even earlier, abortionist David Zbaraz claimed that all first‑trimester and most second‑trimester abortions are medically necessary since, as he alleged, they are safer than childbirth.2

The second reason that the “life of the mother” exception is so pernicious is that it gets people in nations with pro-life laws accustomed to the concept of abortion so that it can be rapidly expanded in the future.  After all, if we can legalize abortion to save the life of the mother, why not legalize it to preserve her physical and mental health as well ― and then for social and economic reasons?

Rarity of the “Hard Cases”

People habitually overestimate the number of abortions committed for the classic "hard cases" of rape and incest, eugenics and life and health of the mother, a common error that is not at all discouraged by pro-abortionists.

Thirty years ago, Dr. Irving Cushner, Professor of Obstetrics at the UCLA School of Medicine, testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee.  When one of the Senators asked him how often abortions are necessary to save the life of the mother or to preserve her physical health, Dr. Cushner, who was strongly pro‑abortion, answered, "In this country, about one percent."3

This number has not changed.  During the years 1996 to 2011, the states of Florida, Louisiana, Minnesota, Nebraska, South Dakota and Utah compiled data on the reasons that women obtain abortions.  Of the 1.3 million aborting women surveyed, only 1.03 percent replied that they were having abortions to protect their lives or physical health.4

Modern medicine has virtually eliminated avoidable maternal deaths due to pregnancy, as many leading experts attested decades ago;

Dr. Alan Guttmacher of Planned Parenthood did more to promote and spread abortion on demand throughout the world than any other individual.  Nearly fifty years ago, he commented "Today it is possible for almost any patient to be brought through pregnancy alive, unless she suffers from a fatal disease such as cancer or leukemia, and if so, abortion would be unlikely to prolong, much less save the life."5  Certainly, with all of the advances in medicine since  then, cases in which a woman's pregnancy threatens her health are even rarer today.

In 1990, reformed abortionist Bernard Nathanson said that "The situation where the mother's life is at stake were she to continue a pregnancy is no longer a clinical reality.  Given the state of modern medicine, we can now manage any pregnant woman with any medical affliction successfully, to the natural conclusion of the pregnancy:  The birth of a healthy child."6

In 1974, the "Father of Fetology," Hymie Gordon, M.D., Director of Medical Genetics at the Mayo Clinic, said that "In more than 25 years now of medical practice, I have come to learn that if a woman is healthy enough to become pregnant, she is healthy enough to complete the term ― in spite of heart disease, liver disease, almost any disease.  As far as I'm concerned, there are no medical indications for terminating a pregnancy."7

In 1981, Dr. Jasper Williams, Jr., of the Bernard Hospital in Chicago, Past President of the National Medical Association, said that "Since 1953, I have never seen a patient die because she needed an abortion and it could not be performed.  Doctors now have the tools and the knowledge with which to work so that they can handle almost any disease a patient may have, whether that patient is pregnant or not, and without interrupting the pregnancy."8

In those extremely rare cases when the mother's life truly is threatened by pregnancy (such as with cancer of the uterus or ectopic pregnancy), she may undergo an operation whose purpose is to save her life, even though the preborn child dies as an indirect result of the procedure.  This principle is known as the "double effect," and is described in the next column.

Life = Health

Many public opinion polls show that a large majority of people do not want to pay for abortions, so pro‑abortionists grossly overestimate the alleged "dangers" of pregnancy and childbirth in order to frighten people into supporting public abortion funding.  They define a threat to the life of the mother in the same terms as a threat to her health;

Abortionist Michael Burnhill of the National Abortion Federation (NAF) said that a "life of the mother" exception would allow him to perform all abortions he considered "medically necessary," all those that would preserve a "condition in which one can actively participate in one's total life ... "9

According to another author, "A Colorado abortion clinic director claimed that his extensive research showed that carrying a pregnancy to term is about 100 times more life threatening than having an abortion.  He, therefore, considered any pregnancy life‑threatening and used that as justification, certifying that the mother's life was endangered."10

Abortionist Jane Hodgson testified under oath that “In my medical judgment, every pregnancy that is not wanted by the patient, I feel there is a medical indication to abort a pregnancy where it is not wanted.  In good faith, I would recommend on a medical basis, you understand, that, and it would be 100% ... I think they are all medically necessary ... I am considering the woman's physical, mental, emotional and social and welfare and family and environment and all that ... I am concerned with the quality of life, not physical existence.”11

Hodgson also summarized the general pro‑abortion attitude when she said "A medically necessary abortion is any abortion a woman asks for."12

Summary

Due to the principle of the “double effect,” surgical procedures that save the mother’s life while causing the undesired and unintended death of the preborn child are permissible, so an abortion exception to save the life of the mother is actually unnecessary.

Pro-lifers must vigorously oppose the “mother’s life” abortion exception because of the inherent dishonesty of abortionists who expand it to mean abortion on demand.  Additionally, if surgical procedures intended to save the life of the mother are labeled “abortions” in those many countries that still have pro-life laws, people will get used to the idea of killing preborn children much more easily, paving the way for a rapid expansion of exceptions and eventual abortion on demand.

Written by Brian Clowes

He and his wife Kathy have been married for 38 years and have seven children.  They have both been pro-life activists in every area from writing to rescue for thirty years.  Brian has been Human Life International’s Director of Research since 1995.

Printed in The Wanderer, July 5, 2012, page 6B.

Endnotes

Lise Fortier, Medical Director of Planned Parenthood of Los Angeles.  Quoted in OB/GYN News, December 1, 1980.

Zbaraz v. Quern, No. 77‑C4522 (N.D. Ill, Memo Opinion, June 13, 1978).

Dr. Irving Cushner, Professor of Obstetrics at the UCLA School of Medicine, testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on the Constitution of the United States on October 14, 1981, quoted in The Village Voice, July 16, 1985.

Calculations and references are contained in Excel spreadsheet F-03-01.XLS on The Facts of Life DVD.

Alan Guttmacher.  "Abortion Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow."  The Case for Legalized Abortion Now [Berkeley, California:  Diablo Books], 1967, page 3.

Bernard Nathanson, M.D.  Written statement to the Idaho House of Representatives' State Affairs Committee, 16 February 1990.  Also quoted in "Exceptions:  Abandoning "The Least of These My Brethren.""  American Life League booklet, 1991, page 22.

Hymie Gordon, M.D., Director of Medical Genetics, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota, October 15, 1974.

Jasper Williams, Jr., M.D., Bernard Hospital, Chicago, Illinois, Past President of the National Medical Association, address of October 19, 1981.

Abortionist Michael Burnhill of the National Abortion Federation on the April 22, 1980 "MacNeil/Lehrer Report."  Quoted in "Exceptions:  Abandoning "The Least of These My Brethren.""  American Life League booklet, 1991, page 24.

"Are Exception Clauses Pro‑Life?"  ALL about Issues, July‑August 1987, pages 25 and 26.

Abortionist Jane Hodgson, transcript, August 3, 1977, at 99‑101, McRae v. Califano, 491 F.Supp. 630 (E.D.N.Y. 1980), rev'd sub nom. Harris v. McRae. 100 S. Ct. 2671 (1980).

Human Life International's Special Report Number 83, August 1991, pages 6 and 7.