During my over 40 years of working as a maternity nurse I never once witnessed a time when an abortion had to be performed to save the life of the mother. When the mother came seeking medical help, she was usually in a crisis situation and we would do whatever we could to save her life. Sometimes that meant hospitalizing her and stabilizing her blood pressure if she was pre-eclamptic, giving her antibiotics if she had an infection or if she was bleeding vaginally and the bleeding could not be controlled, a cesarean section was performed. The pregnancy was ended. The baby either lived or died peacefully in the mother’s arms. There was no time to do an abortion. To do an abortion takes time. You have to soften the cervix and then depending on the gestational age of the baby you take time to extract the baby by whatever means is necessary, often crushing the baby’s head and tearing baby parts. Most good obstetricians try to save both mother and baby.
In his book Two Patients: My Conversion from Abortion to Life-Affirming Medicine, Dr. John Bruchalski describes his journey from abortion to life-affirming medicine by caring for both patients, the mother and the baby. His Divine Mercy Care foundation provides funds for underserved women who wanted to chose life and could not afford quality medical care. Divine Mercy Care is a new model of compassionate health care that our communities and country should look to adopt. (1)
It is often said that if we don’t have legal abortion, many women will die from illegal abortions. That was what was proposed as support for the supreme court decision in Roe v Wade that legalized abortion in our country. In 1969 two men, Larry Lader and Bernard Nathanson started NARAL (The National Abortion Rights League) to push the legalization of abortion. They were greatly influential in getting that supreme court decision. Many of the statistics they used were in their words, “completely made up”. They fabricated the number of illegal abortions and the number of women dying from abortion. They inflated the number of illegal abortions by 10 and the women dying by 40. (2)
Women are still dying from abortions although not at the rate as before legalizations, and although maternal mortality has been reduced in this country mainly through improved obstetric and hospital care, the discovery and use of antibiotics, and expanding prenatal care, maternal mortality is still high. Since the 1980’s there has been a lack of decline in maternal mortality. What most people don’t know is that the United States has a higher maternal mortality rate that other developed countries. Abortion is not the answer. (3) Much research is needed to assess the reasons for this data and ways to improve maternal care and access to quality care. Perhaps Dr. Burchalski’s may have the answer!
- Bruchalski, J & Daniel, E. 2022. Two patients: My conversion from abortion to life affirming medicine. Ignatios Press, San francisco.
- Browder, S.E. 2015. Subverted. How I helped the sexual revolution hijack the women’s movement, Ignatius Press, San Francisco.
- CDC. 1999. Achievements in public health, 1900-1999: Healthier Mothers and Babies. MMWR, 4838:849-858.
