Dr. Beverly McMillan is an ob/gyn. In 1975, she
became the first woman to open an abortion clinic in
Mississippi. She ceased doing abortions in 1978 when
she became convinced that the abortions she was
performing were causing everyone involved far more
harm than good.
Below are her answers to common questions about
abortion.
What are the physical
complications of abortion?
The most common, immediate, and short-term
complications include excessive bleeding, chronic
and acute infections, intense pain, high fever,
convulsions, shock, coma, incomplete removal of the
baby or placenta (which can cause life-threatening
infections and sterility), pelvic inflammatory
disease, punctured or torn uteruses, and even death.
Abortion can also result in uterine scarring, a
weakened cervix, blocked fallopian tubes, and other
damage to reproductive organs that can make it
difficult to conceive or carry a child to term in
the future. This latent morbidity of abortion
results in long-term and sometimes permanent damage.
Women who have had abortions also experience more
ectopic (tubal) pregnancies, infertility,
hysterectomies, stillbirths, miscarriages, and
premature births (the leading cause of birth
defects) than women who have not had abortions.
Abortion has also been linked to increased risks of
developing breast, cervical, and uterine cancer.(1)
I'll admit that abortion
is not a good thing. And it may have physical and
psychological risks. But don't you have to admit
that legal abortion is safer than illegal abortion?
No. More than 90 percent of illegal abortions
were already performed by doctors.
When abortion was illegal, abortionists had to be
very careful to avoid infection, laceration, and
puncturing of the uterus, since a visit to the
emergency room was an invitation for a police
investigation. Not anymore.
Today, abortionists are free to operate on an
assembly-line basis. The faster they work, the more
money they make. When women get hurt...well, that's
just the risk that goes with any surgery.
I still think that legal
abortions must be at least marginally safer than
illegal abortions. Certainly women who suffer
physical complications can get emergency medical
treatment faster now without being afraid of
becoming involved in a criminal investigation.
That's true. But that is the only health benefit
of legalized abortion.
The overall impact is still very negative because
the total number of women having abortions has
increased dramatically.
Why? Because legalizing abortion has made it
easier to pressure reluctant women into having
abortions. Before 1973, women could resist an
unwanted abortion on the grounds that it was illegal
and unsafe.
But now people assume that since abortion is
legal, it must be safe. That makes it harder for
women to resist unwanted abortions for health or
safety reasons.
As a result, the number of abortions has
increased ten- to fifteen-fold with only a minimal
improvement, if any, in safety.
So, while the percentage of deaths from
hemorrhage and infections may have gone down, the
actual number of women suffering these
complications has gone up far more.
In addition, since psychological complications
are even more common than physical complications,
the number of women experiencing complications of
one type or another has increased dramatically.(2)
NOTES:
1. See the
important annotated bibliography: Strahan, T.,
Detrimental Effects of Abortion: An Annotated
Bibliography with Commentary (3rd
Edition) It contains over 1200 citations to
the published medical literature.
2. Reardon,
Aborted Women, op cit., 1987), 281-300.
