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Bank robbery is a dangerous business. Many are injured or killed in such attempts each year. Of course, it is not the hazards of bank robbery that make it unlawful. Rather, it is the harm (physical or financial) that it does to other people. It's the same with abortion. The primary opposition to abortion is not rooted in its potential danger to women (and it can be dangerous). The main opposition comes from the fact that abortion kills a living human being. The safety of a particular activity does not make it right or wrong. The impact it has on other people does.
With that said, there are two reasons why it is still important to lay out the medical risks of abortion. There may be many women (and men) who don't care about the violence that abortion does to a baby, but there will be far fewer who don't care about the violence that abortion does to their body. A greater understanding of the medical risks will dissuade them. Secondly, the abortion industry's refusal to adequately inform women of the potential risks of abortion is further proof that they care more about money and politics than they do about a woman's health. If they didn't have a vested interest in her "choice", why would they lobby so hard against disclosing all of the potential risks?
To get a better understanding of the severity of the abortion procedure, consider the following testimony from Abortion Practice, written by Dr. Warren Hern, a leading late-term abortionist.
A high level of operator skill is at least as important in abortion as it is in any surgical endeavor. Abortion is a blind procedure that proceeds by touch, awareness of the nuances of sensations provided by instruments, honesty, and caution...abortion, almost more than any other operation, demands experience to develop skill...Well trained, highly experienced, and reputable gynecologists found, to their dismay, that when abortions became legal and they began performing them, the complication rates were frequently quite high. Certain competence in other aspects of pelvic surgery does not in itself assure competence in abortion.
Dr. Hern quotes in the same section from Dr. William Rashbaum who doesn't consider that he became "competent" as an abortionist until performing "somewhere around 12,000 procedures".
In an April 9, 1995 article, Dr. Hern tells the New York Times, "As a society, I think we've been in denial about the risks of abortion both because of ideology, and because of economics. There are a lot of respectable doctors doing a lousy job." Dr. Hern admits that even with the best care, 5 to 10 percent of first trimester abortions are incomplete, leaving behind tissue or even the entire fetal sac.
As such, uterine damage, complications in future pregnancy, breast cancer and death are all risk factors associated with legal abortion.
A wide range of peer-reviewed, medical studies have indicated that a woman who aborts her first pregnancy during the first-trimester is at least 30% more likely to contract breast cancer by the time she is 40 than had she carried her pregnancy to term.1 Since breast cancer is the most common form of cancer in women today, one which kills 40,000 women annually, the connection between abortion and breast cancer should not be ignored.
While risk factors themselves do not make abortion unjust or immoral, when added to all the other evidence, they make the case against abortion that much stronger.
1. Induced Abortion as Independent Risk Factor for Breast Cancer: A Comprehensive Review and Meta-Analysis, Brind, J.L., Chinchilli, V.M., Severs, W., & Summy-Long, Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, Volume 50, pp. 481-496
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