Op-Ed: The Top 5 Myths from Abortion Activists Debunked
With the leak of a draft majority opinion last week showing the Supreme Court is on the verge of overturning Roe v. Wade, pro-abortion activists are once again repeating false talking points about pro-lifers and abortion.
Here are my top five myths from abortion activists.
5. The world is overpopulated, and abortion will help solve the issue.
A common example of this type of thinking came from communist China with its one-child policy to control population growth.
However, data shows we do not have an overpopulation problem. Austin Ruse, president of the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute, says many countries are actually facing a serious underpopulation issue.
“At this point more than 80 countries have achieved what is known as below replacement fertility, the point at which women are having so few children, generally thought to be below 2.1 children per woman, that countries are no longer replacing themselves,” Ruse wrote in an article for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.
“The UN predicts that every nation on earth, with the exception of a few African nations, will reach below replacement fertility within the next twenty years. And this is a very serious problem. What this means is a rapidly aging population that turns the demographic pyramid on its head.”
4. Abortion is a safe procedure with no long-term consequences.
Pro-abortion activists claim that abortion is safe and healthy.
However, the abortion lobby and establishment media won’t report on the many women who have faced long-term trauma from abortion.
“It is certain that for some women, abortion is a traumatic stressor capable of causing PTSD symptoms,” according to Dr. Martha Shuping. “In my own clinical experience, women have reported nightmares specifically related to the abortion, not past sexual abuse. Flashbacks are triggered by reminders of the abortion, not previous trauma.”
“For the women I have treated, most, if not all, would say that the most central aspect of their distress is the loss of the child. There are certainly women who do not think of the fetus as a child, but for those who experience distress, this is often a central issue.”
3. Pro-lifers aren’t pro-life, they’re just pro-birth.
We hear this argument so often from the left. It is claimed that pro-lifers do not care about the mother and baby after the pregnancy.
A genuine “pro-life” position would include support for universal healthcare, paid family leave, a child tax credit, & other measures to help struggling mothers.
You can’t be honestly “pro-life” if you also support dismantling the social safety net. That’s just pro-forced-birth.
— Ahmed Baba (@AhmedBaba_) May 3, 2022
This is clearly false. Aid for Women is just one of many pro-life organizations that provide support, education and housing for mothers after birth.
2. Abortion is sometimes medically necessary to save the life of the mother.
In 2016, the pro-life organization Live Action interviewed former abortionist Dr. Anthony Levatino about his journey to becoming pro-life. He stated from his experience that abortion is never required to save the life of the mother.
“We hear all the time how abortion, including late-term abortion, is necessary to save women’s lives,” Levatino said. “Nothing could be further from the truth.”
“I saw hundreds of cases of really severe pregnancy complications — cancers, heart disease, intractable diabetes out of control, toxemia pregnancy out of control — and I saved in those nine years hundreds of women from life-threatening pregnancies, and I did that by delivering them, by ending their pregnancy by delivery, either induction of labor or caesarian section.
“And I always tell people in all of those years the number of babies that I was obligated to deliberately kill in the process was zero, none.”
1. Abortion doesn’t kill a child. It’s just a clump of cells.
Many scientific organizations acknowledge the overwhelming evidence that life begins at conception.
“The predominance of human biological research confirms that human life begins at conception — fertilization,” according to the American College of Pediatricians.
“At fertilization, the human being emerges as a whole, genetically distinct, individuated zygotic living human organism, a member of the species Homo Sapiens, needing only the proper environment in order to grow and develop.”
When an abortion takes place, nobody wins. The unborn child is killed, and it affects everyone involved.
Life is a beautiful gift from God. We must defend all human life, especially the most vulnerable.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
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