Women in the US can terminate their pregnancy at any time during the usual nine months of fetal development–for any reason–or no reason at all. Often, pro-choice proponents say that abortion must be kept legal because of all the cases where the mother’s life is in danger.
But did you know, according to Planned Parenthood’s own statistics, only 6% of the 1.37 million abortions occurring annually in the US are because of potential health problems regarding either the mother or child? Of that 6%, you could safely assume about half are directly due to a threat to the mother’s life. That’s about 3%.
But think about it. Even in the cases of, for example, an ectopic (tubal) pregnancy, where both mother and baby cannot both survive, the “choice” is obvious and medically necessary, and any OB/GYN would perform the necessary surgery to remove the embryo – no abortion clinic needed. In fact, all OB/GYNs are trained to perform the procedure involved with a pregnancy termination, called a D&C, and medically it is the same procedure you would have if you were suffering a miscarriage. However, it is an individual doctor’s choice whether they wish to perform an elective pregnancy termination, i.e. an abortion, and most of them do not. Why? Because abortion is not health care.
© Copyright 1996-2008, The Alan Guttmacher Institute. (www.agi-usa.org)