Illegal Abortion

Illegal abortion propaganda is used to legalize abortion 

Pro-abortionists admit the lie

The legend of thousands of women dying of illegal abortions all over the world has been a devastatingly effective propaganda instrument in the past, and is now being used by pro-abortion groups to legalize abortion in this country. However, no evidence exists to support this spurious claim. For example, Dr. Bernard Nathanson, one of the founders of the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL), and the former owner of the largest abortion clinic in the world states:

"How many deaths were we talking about when abortion was illegal? In NARAL, we generally emphasised the frame of the individual case, not the mass statistics, but when we spoke of the latter it was always '5,000 to 10,000 deaths a year.' I confess that I knew the figures were totally false, and I suppose the others did too... But in the 'morality' of our revolution, it was a useful figure, widely accepted, so why go out of our way to correct it with honest statistics? The overriding concern was to get the laws eliminated, and anything within reason that had to be done was permissible."

Pro-abortionist Marian Faux confirms in her book Roe v. Wade;

An image of tens of thousands of women being maimed or killed each year by illegal abortion was so persuasive a piece of propaganda that the [pro-abortion] movement could be forgiven its failure to double-check the facts.

Malcolm Potts, who helped spread abortion throughout the world, claimed that:

Those who want the law to be liberalized will stress the hazards of illegal abortion and claim that hundreds, or thousands, of women die unnecessarily each year, when the actual number is far lower.

The real reason for legislation

The primary reason pro-abortionists alleged that they wanted to reform or repeal abortion laws was that maternal health was at stake. However, the true primary objective for getting rid of abortion laws was far different. Pro-abortionists hoped to eliminate laws, not to defuse the danger of back-alley abortionists, but to codify existing practice in order to allow doctors to more easily obtain insurance and legal coverage. In other words, the great 'reform or repeal' effort was strictly a business move.

Upon legalization, the abortion entrepreneurs immediately saw their chance. Dr. Bernard Nathanson, spoke at the May 12, 1972 Annual Meeting of the Executive Board of the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws. Dr. Nathanson referred to the legal abortion clinics that sprouted like mushrooms in New York City immediately after legalization. These high-volume obituaries committed a staggering 300,000 abortions in 1972 alone.

Explosion in Abortion

Consider the sheer numbers of abortions that are now performed in that country. According to the NARAL, about 200,000 illegal abortions took place annually before Roe v. Wade. The maternal death rate was about 40 per 100,000 abortions. Contrary to pro-abort myth, the vast majority of these abortions were performed by fully-trained medical doctors. In fact, many of the MDs who did vast numbers of illegal abortions before 1973 openly boast about them now.

Essentially, all Roe v. Wade did was move the back-alley abortion mills around to the front of the alley. Currently, about 1.5 million abortions are performed every year. Assuming that the procedure became three times as safe as it was before (remember that 90% of all illegal abortions were performed by doctors), twice as many women are dying of legal abortions now because the number of abortions increased seven fold after 1970.

Deaths from legal abortions

Now that abortion is legal in the US, pro-abortionists constantly understate the number of women who die of legal abortions. According to authoritative sources, there can be no question that the number of severe injuries and deaths inflicted upon women by abortion (in the US) has been increasing since 1973 instead of decreasing.

There is documentation on women who have died of so-called 'safe and legal' abortions, but whose deaths are not noted because of statistical chicanery. It is certain that 50 to 100 US women die of abortions every year now, about 1/3 of them 'on the table,' but most within one week due to abortion-related complications. It is also obvious that almost all women who die several days after an abortion will have causes of death other than the abortion itself listed on their death certificates. Yet these deaths should properly be included in the total abortion mortality figures.

Maternal Deaths

Pro-Abortion lies about maternal deaths due to illegal abortions

It is interesting to note that the pro-abort's claimed figure for abortion deaths in each case equals or exceeds the total number of female deaths for all causes (including all accidents and all diseases)! This obviously means that they not only lack integrity but common sense as well. The only reason that these lies work is that the pro-abortion press mindlessly accepts everything the baby-killers say. And, unfortunately, most members of the public assume that the press tells the truth.