Only 0.006 percent of abortions are done to save the mother's life

The feet of an aborted fetus (via)

Any discussion on abortion usually leads to a discussion on this hypothetical question, "What if the mother's life is in danger because of the continuing pregnancy, and the doctor must make a choice between saving the mother or saving the child? Wouldn't an abortion in such a case be justified?"

As a doctor, I can tell you there are really very few situations in the first and second trimesters, where an ongoing pregnancy could endanger the health of the mother. For example, a patient with a very severe heart disease may not be able to carry a pregnancy into the third trimester.

I usually address this ethical dilemma by talking about the fact that it is sometimes necessary to do something that is essentially wrong, and violate a moral law, in order to really obey a higher moral law. For example, if we know a terrorist is planning to blow up a building, and there is no other option, we may need to kill the terrorist in order to save the lives of the others in the building. We would do this even though we know it is wrong to kill.

Very rarely, therefore, it may be necessary (and right) to abort a human fetus in order to save the life of the mother.

More often, this situation arises in the third trimester, especially in a mother with eclampsia (caused by very high blood pressures). In such cases, the baby must be quickly delivered, even if the chance of the pre-term baby surviving are lower because that is the only way the mother can get better. This is technically not an abortion, but, rather, an early delivery. The aim is always to deliver the baby in a facility which has a good neonatal unit, so that even such a preterm baby can have a chance to survive.

Which is why I am not surprised by the results of an audit of 6.4 million abortions in England and Wales between 1968 and 2011, which found that only 0.006 percent of procedures were performed to save the life of the mother.

I quote,
"A report to Parliament has revealed abortions performed in the United Kingdom to save the life of the mother are a stunningly low 0.006 percent of procedures.

David Alton, who for 18 years was a member of the House of Commons, wrote, “When the case for allowing legal abortion was first placed before Parliament it was argued that the law needed to be changed to deal with extremely serious situations.

“More than six million abortions later the figures reveal that in 99.5 percent of the cases where an unborn child’s life is ended there is no risk to the health of the mother,” he said.

The details came in a response from Earl Howe, the parliamentary undersecretary of state in the nation’s Department of Health, to Parliament. He confirmed from 1968 through 2011, the last year for which details were available, there were 6.4 million abortions for women in England and Wales.

“Of these, 143 (0.006 percent) were performed under Section 1(4), i.e. where the termination is immediately necessary to save the life of the pregnant woman or to prevent grave permanent injury to the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman,” he wrote.

He noted another 24,778 were done on the grounds that a continued pregnancy would involve more risk to the mother than if the unborn child were destroyed."
(HT: Veith)

Clearly, this rare indication for performing an abortion has been over-used and misused to justify framing very liberal abortion laws.

Proverbs 24:11,12
11.Deliver those who are being taken away to death, And those who are staggering to slaughter, Oh hold them back.
12.If you say, "See, we did not know this," Does He not consider it who weighs the hearts? And does He not know it who keeps your soul? And will He not render to man according to his work?




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