900 Medical Professionals Claim that Abortion is Never Necessary to Save a Woman's Life

According to this article, there have been nearly 900 doctors and other medical professionals, so far, who have signed the Dublin Declaration, which states that abortion is never medically necessary to save a woman's life.

The full text of the Dublin Declaration reads as follows:

“As experienced practitioners and researchers in obstetrics and gynaecology, we affirm that direct abortion – the purposeful destruction of the unborn child – is not medically necessary to save the life of a woman. 

We uphold that there is a fundamental difference between abortion, and necessary medical treatments that are carried out to save the life of the mother, even if such treatment results in the loss of life of her unborn child. 

We confirm that the prohibition of abortion does not affect, in any way, the availability of optimal care to pregnant women.”

The fact that almost 900 medical professionals have signed this document is strong testimony that abortion is not health care and that abortion does not need to be legal in order to protect women's lives.

We have written about abortion for the life of the mother before. If abortion ever was necessary to save the life of a pregnant woman, that is the ONLY case where it would ever be acceptable. However, abortion to save a woman's life does not in any way justify any other form of abortion. But the "life of the mother" argument assumes that abortion might sometimes be necessary to save a woman's life. There is increasing evidence that this is not the case and that it is never necessary to purposely end the life of an unborn child in order to save his mother's.

Richard Dawkins on the Morality of Abortion

Recently, prominent atheist Richard Dawkins offered his opinion on whether or not one should abort a baby with Down Syndrome:

@InYourFaceNYer Abort it and try again. It would be immoral to bring it into the world if you have the choice.
— Richard Dawkins (@RichardDawkins) August 20, 2014

There is no need to recount the entire thing since the story is widely available (here is one source). So I will only focus on the content of his tweet.

First of all, you cannot abort someone who has not already been brought into this world. Conception produces a new, genetically distinct human individual who has a body of his very own. When one commits abortion, it is this individual who is killed. This individual already exists. Birth is only one event in the life on an individual, and biologically speaking, that event is less significant to one's body than adolescence.

Second, as an atheist, Dawkins has no basis upon which to suggest that any action is "immoral." Sure, he can say that something is good or bad, but morality requires an objective moral law and a source for that moral law, and Dawkins believes that no such thing actually exists.

Dawkins has also stated long ago that killing babies after they are born is acceptable, too. At least that's consistent with his religious worldview. It's insane, but consistent. Here's a good response by scientist Jonathan Sarfati.

Mississippi's Last Abortion Clinic to Stay Open due to Court Ruling

According to this news article, a US Court of Appeals ruled that a new law requiring abortionists to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital cannot be implemented because it would cause the last abortion clinic in the state to close and, thus, interfere with a woman's "constitutional right to end her pregnancy by abortion" within the state.

Of course, someone should explain to this court that there is no "Constitutional right" to end a pregnancy by abortion. Not once is there any mention of abortion in the Constitution. Not once is there ever a guarantee that a mother has a right to kill her child. In fact, the Constitution says precisely the opposite.

The 5th Amendment says that "No person shall be...deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law."

The 14th Amendment similarly states that "No State shall...deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

Since a new human life begins at fertilization and all humans are persons, the Constitution says that these pre-born humans cannot be deprived of life without due process of law or denied equal protection of the law. Unfortunately, our court system does not recognize this straightforward reading of the Constitution and is denying the rights of the unborn.

The other issue is that the law in question did not seek to ban abortion, but merely changed the regulations for abortion clinics in order to protect the health of women. So not only did this court ruling fail to protect the unborn, it failed to protect women from sub-standard health practitioners who ought not to be practicing medicine on anyone. What this court decided, then, was that it is so important that women be able to get an abortion conveniently (without going out of state) that we ought not to let concerns about how safe it is for her get in the way.

So much for the liberals' claim that they want abortion to be safe. They don't care if it's safe, as long as it's readily available.

13-Year-Old Girl in UK Forced by Judge to Have an Abortion

According to this article in the Huffington Post, a 13-year-old girl in the UK was ordered by a judge to have an abortion, which has since been carried out. The girl is mentally disabled and said to have the mental capacity of a 7-year-old. In spite of her very clear indications that she did not want an abortion and the testimony of a professional psychiatrist that an abortion would be emotionally damaging for her and that she would see it as an assault, the judge ruled that an abortion was in her best interest. In his words: "Leaving to one side her own wishes and feelings, the preponderance of all the evidence is clear that it would be in her best interests to have a termination."

So now it's not even about a woman's choice, I guess. Now that we have defined the unborn to be non-persons and made it legally and socially acceptable to kill them at will, our society now sees killing an unborn child as health care for the mother and of no more significance than of pulling a tooth or having an appendix removed. Is it any wonder, then, that a judge would rule that forcing a young teen to have an abortion against her will is in her best interest? Is it any wonder that her conscience, in not wanting to kill her child, was ignored?

If the unborn are not persons, then not only should we ignore the rights of the unborn child, but we should also ignore any ideas people might have about the humanity of the unborn. A young woman's conscience (i.e. "wishes and feelings") being opposed to abortion must be just superstition and shouldn't be taken into account in deciding what is best for her. That is the logic we are seeing here.

This isn't the first such case either. For example, there have been similar cases of mentally disabled women forced or nearly forced to have abortions by judges in January of 2012 in Massachusetts, November of 2012 in Nevada, and January of 2013 in London.

In a culture where dehumanizing the unborn is so common, it is no surprise to see a shift toward forced abortion as people see less and less reason to value and protect life. All this talk of "choice" contributes to the idea that abortion is just an ordinary choice. So if the courts can decide what is best for a child or disabled person in other matters, why not decide for them whether they should have an abortion? Why not "choose" abortion for those deemed incapable of choice for themselves? If abortion is just a choice, that's what logically follows, and we can expect to see a lot more women forced to abort in the future.

Abortion for the Life of the Mother?

One of the most common arguments brought up with regard to keeping abortion legal is the life of the mother. Whenever anyone says that abortion should be illegal, the immediate response from the pro-abortion side is "What about abortions to save the life of the mother?" They seem to think that making abortion illegal places women at risk. However, the life of the mother argument is not a good argument for keeping all abortion legal.

First, we would like to make it clear that we are unconvinced that abortion is ever necessary to save the life of anyone. In fact, there is good reason to think that direct abortion is never a necessary treatment for any condition of the mother. (See statements from the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists here, here, and especially here.)

However, we are open to the possibility of terminating a pregnancy to save a woman's life. If several doctors independently agree that it is absolutely necessary to end a pregnancy, otherwise the mother will die, then the mother should be treated to save her life. Some might call this abortion, though the intent differs from elective abortion in that the death of the child is not the primary objective. We don't consider such life-saving procedures abortions. Abortion involves the intentional killing of the unborn child as its main purpose and is not simply removing a fetus or ending a pregnancy (that's called birth or C-section). Thus, a procedure that removes a child from the womb for the purpose of preserving the mother's life is not the same thing as abortion, even if the child dies as a result.

In discussing this issue, several points come to mind:

1. Most abortions do not fall into this category.

2. Doctors should be required to recognize that with a pregnant woman they have two patients, and every effort should be made to save both of them.

3. If the pregnancy is causing complications, an induction or C-section with the intent to save the child's life should be performed instead of an abortion, if at all possible.

4. In many ectopic pregnancies (due to the location of implantation), the unborn child has no chance of survival anyway. So save the person you can - the mother.

5. In many cases where the life of the mother is endangered, the unborn child will not survive if the mother dies. So in those cases, it only makes sense to save the mother. The death of the child is not an intended result in such cases, but a by-product of saving the mother's life.

6. In many cases where abortion is claimed to be for the life of the mother, it is really to protect doctors. For example, a pregnant woman with cancer may be advised to have an abortion and then start chemotherapy. The idea is that chemo is dangerous to the child and so the mother should get an abortion before starting treatment. However, in these cases it is the cancer threatening the mother's life, not the pregnancy. And doctors are usually advising abortion so that they aren't sued for harming the baby by giving chemo to a pregnant woman. But if the unborn child is a human being (and he is), then it is never okay to kill him to prevent a risk of injury to him. That's like shooting someone because he is at risk for a heart attack. The "cure" (abortion) is worse than the disease (possible birth defect or death). That isn't medicine; that's doctors covering their own tails. The proper way to handle these situations is to consider both patients and work to do the least harm. Early delivery may be the best solution. Having the mother undergo chemo, even while pregnant, may be necessary (even if it causes the death of the child). The best decision may vary, depending on the individual case. But it is not necessary to purposely kill the baby in order to treat the mother.

7. The proposal for these "life of the mother abortions" should originate from an actual doctor, not someone in an abortion mill (like Planned Parenthood), nor from the patient (in order to avoid to avoid doctor shopping for an abortion). For instance, a cancer patient does not shop around for a doctor who will prescribe chemotherapy. He goes do a doctor who then prescribes chemotherapy if it is necessary to save the patient’s life. Remember, we're talking about a medical decision which is designed to save the life of the mother. That should be the original and primary intention – not an abortion. An actual abortion should be a last resort, and employed only when it is the only way to save the mother’s life.

8. In general, the purpose should not be to get rid of an unwanted pregnancy. We're talking about necessary steps to save the life of the mother which may, unfortunately, result in the death of her unborn child.

9. This life of the mother exception does not, in any way, justify elective abortions or abortion on demand. So most abortions should be illegal.