Science Undermines Abortion Activists

by William Donahue

Abortion activists never tire of bragging how much they want to empower women, allowing them to make informed choices regarding abortion. The truth is just the opposite: champions of abortion are threatened by knowledge, especially scientific knowledge. Their goal, to put it bluntly, is to deny women information that might entice them to keep their babies. Consider the evidence. October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, but what happened last October proves my point — the media refused to disseminate information that might have made women pause before deciding on an abortion. To be specific, in a scientific study by Patrick Carroll published in the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, it was determined that the incidence of breast cancer increases with the incidence of earlier abortions. Using standard statistical techniques, the British researcher, who studied eight European countries, was able to conclude that abortion is the “best predictor” of breast cancer trends.

So why is it that pro-life people like yourself are learning about this for the first time by reading this article? Because the media, which is decidedly in the pro-abortion corner, fears that if this information gets known, it will work against their cause. Indeed, the only journalist to write about this story in the entire nation was Dennis Byrne in the Chicago Tribune. The same media, by the way, didn’t mind trumpeting the fact that a recent study showed that women who have a couple of drinks a day increase their risk of breast cancer by 13 percent. But even though abortion raises a women’s risk of breast cancer by at least 30 percent, that statistic was still deemed too threatening to report.

More proof that science is the enemy of the pro-abortionists can be seen in reading their reaction to sonograms. NARAL and Planned Parenthood have done everything they can to keep women ignorant about the latest scientific advances. That is why they oppose virtually every state and federal law allowing for informed consent. They are positively frightened by ultrasound pictures. Indeed, an abortionist from Long Island recently admitted that “no woman is going to want an abortion after she sees a sonogram.” He’s afraid he may lose his job.

An evangelical organization, Heidi Group, estimates that 90 percent of women considering an abortion decide against doing so once they are introduced to ultrasound technology. Lawyers representing the abortion industry instinctively know this is true, which explains why one of them, Florida attorney Barry Silver, confessed that if women had access to such techniques it would “eviscerate a woman’s right to choose.” Silver wasn’t exactly truthful: it is not the right to choose that is in jeopardy — it is the choice to abort.

As far back as 1989, a pollster for NARAL, Harrison Hickman, expressed his worst fear: “Nothing has been as damaging to our cause as  the advances in technology [that have] allowed pictures of the developing fetus, because now people talk about that fetus in much different terms than they did fifteen years ago. They talk about it as a human being, which is not something I have an easy answer how to cure.” That’s right. When “they talk about it as a human being,” it’s lights out for abortion rights activists. Better to pretend the baby is a clump of cells, or a thing that lacks “personhood.” That’s the problem with pictures of babies in utero, they give away the store. And this, more than anything, explains why young women are becoming more pro-life.

None of this is new. The only choices the so-called pro-choice side has ever championed are the ones it likes. Here is what Simone de Beauvoir, the French feminist, told her American colleague, Betty Friedan, in 1976: “No woman should be authorized to stay at home to raise her children. Society should be totally different. Women should not have that choice.” This is the way totalitarians talk, not advocates for tolerance.

Four years ago I debated Planned Parenthood president Gloria Feldt on the Phil Donahue show. Phil, of course, was totally on her side, so I pulled a fast one on the two of them. I read two sentences: “An abortion kills the life of the baby after it has begun. It is dangerous to your life and health.” Taking the bait, Phil angrily said, “Who said that?” I answered, “Planned Parenthood in 1963, 40 years ago.” So the pro-abortion side knows what the truth is. Indeed, after my exchange with Phil, I turned to Feldt: “Were you wrong? Were you wrong back then? What’s your answer? What happened? Did somehow the baby become some kind of a turtle? Actually, we do have more respect for the turtles in Florida. We have the Endangered Species Act.” Feldt, of course, simply dodged the issue and rambled on about preventing unplanned pregnancies. Our side doesn’t have to dodge anything — all we have to do is tell the truth. Their side has to lie. They also have to keep women from learning about scientific breakthroughs that undermine their cause. Nothing they do is honorable.

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