Unveiling Abortion: Debunking Myths, Exposing Lies, and Revealing the Truth
Separating Fact from Fiction in the National Abortion Debate
At the beginning of November, Ohioans passed a bill to amend their state constitution regarding abortion. The amendment’s language states that it will guarantee in the state of Ohio’s constitution “the individual right to make and carry out reproductive decisions for oneself—including decisions about (i) contraception, (ii) fertility treatment, (iii) continuing one’s own pregnancy, (iv) miscarriage care, and (v) abortion. The Amendment would allow the State to regulate such decisions insofar as it uses the “least restrictive means to advance the pregnant individual’s health in accordance with widely accepted and evidence-based standards of care.” After fetal viability, the Amendment would authorize the State to restrict abortion or to prohibit it outright, subject only to an exception to protect the pregnant person’s life or health.”
Ohio law, which had restricted abortion after 21 weeks and 6 days gestation, already included exceptions that would allow an abortion if the life of the mother is in danger (which is so rare as to be a virtually nonexistent circumstance) or if the mother would suffer irreversible physical harm. The amendment used unclear and ambiguous language that those who oppose abortion say could open the door to elective abortion, at any time during a pregnancy for any reason, and if a doctor is willing to agree the mother's health may be harmed, up to and including mental health. Before passing this amendment, Ohio law did not allow mental health to be a determining factor to allow an abortion for an otherwise healthy pregnancy.
The new amendment also does not clearly define ‘viability’, thus leaving it up to the abortion provider or treating physician to determine.
Abortion has become America’s most controversial hot-button issue in the U.S. since the Dobbs decision, but there is no shortage of misinformation and outright lies surrounding the issue. It’s entirely one-sided, too. The pro-abortion organizations and activists have been actively engaged in a propaganda war since before Roe was decided. We’ll take the time in this article to break down some of the more egregious lies and myths perpetuated by abortion advocates. Let’s start with the most common and absurd lie.
“No human being/child is killed in an abortion! An abortion simply ends a pregnancy!”
This is easily the most outrageous lie because it relies heavily on a strong denial of basic science that most of us learned in middle school. Biology dictates that two human beings can only reproduce another human being. A “human being” is simply defined as an individual member of the species Homo sapiens. The organism in utero, from the moment of fertilization (fusion of the spermatozoa with the ovum), is a genetically complete individual human being. This is Carnegie Stage 1a.
Biologically, this human being is the genetic offspring of the human man and woman that contributed to their creation. “Offspring” is most commonly defined as “child/children.” See also “young”, “progeny”, and “descendants”.
For an induced abortion to be classified as a successful procedure, this human being cannot survive, and fetal demise must be ensured. If the child survives the procedure, the abortion is classified as a “failed abortion”. This is how induced abortion “ends a pregnancy”: by intentionally killing the child in utero.
“But a fetus isn’t a baby! If you know of anyone killing babies, you should call the police,” is another common refrain. The term “fetus” is quite literally Latin for “offspring”, which we established means “child/children”, and colloquially, a very young child is referred to as a “baby”. Even doctors regularly refer to the unborn as “babies”.
“If abortion is outlawed, women with ectopic pregnancies or incomplete miscarriages will die!”
This is one of the most common lies pushed by abortion advocates, and make no mistake, it is a blatant lie. Neither ectopic pregnancies nor incomplete miscarriages are treated with an induced abortion. In fact, there is no medical condition for which the standard treatment is an induced abortion, but we will get to that shortly.
Before the Dobbs decision, Planned Parenthood even included a section on their website on ectopic pregnancies informing people that induced abortions are not how ectopic pregnancies are treated. That section has since been quietly edited. Ectopic pregnancies, when detected early, are commonly treated with a medicine called methotrexate, not mifepristone and misoprostol, the two medications used for medication abortions. Surgical options are typically laparoscopic procedures called a salpingectomy or salpingostomy, not a D&C (dilation and curettage) or D&E (dilation and evacuation).
As for incomplete miscarriages (when the woman’s body doesn’t naturally expel the body of the child who died in utero), a procedure called “dilation and curettage”, or D&C, is performed. This is confusing for a lot of people because a D&C is also a common procedure used to perform induced abortions when the woman is too far along in pregnancy for a medication abortion. However, not every D&C is an abortive procedure and the majority of women who have this procedure done aren’t even pregnant to begin with. It’s an extremely common diagnostic procedure to remove intrauterine polyps or even treat endometriosis, for example.
If the child passes during the third trimester, induced labor and delivery or an emergency C-section are the safest ways to remove the body and prevent possible sepsis for the mother.
The CDC defines abortion as an intervention procedure done to end an intrauterine pregnancy and avoid a live birth. In the event of an incomplete miscarriage, the pregnancy has already ended naturally, so removing the child’s body via D&C procedure is not an abortive procedure. Since ectopic pregnancies are extrauterine, they do not fall under the banner of an induced abortion either.
“What about other health conditions that can arise from pregnancy?”
As we mentioned earlier, there is no medical condition for which the standard treatment is an induced abortion. An abortion is offered to the woman as an option, but even if she chooses that, her condition will still require treatment before, during, or after the abortion procedure. Doctors have even stated that starting at around 20 weeks gestation or more, there is no medical reason to abort the child. Delivery is the safest option for mother and baby.
The website Everyday Health lists six medical conditions which they claim require an abortion to treat.
Pulmonary hypertension: Vasodilators, GSC stimulators, meds that widen blood vessels and/or increase blood flow, blood thinners, calcium channel blockers, digoxin, water pills, or oxygen therapy are all medical avenues to treat pulmonary hypertension until the baby is developed enough to deliver.
Ectopic pregnancy (which we addressed already)
Severe preeclampsia: The risk of full-blown eclampsia passes after birth, so the standard of care is to medically manage the condition until delivery is deemed safe for the baby. Severe preeclampsia would require hospital supervision. It’s treated with any hypertension meds, anticonvulsants, and corticosteroids to help the baby’s lungs develop until the baby can be delivered.
Severe kidney disease: Blood pressure meds, anti-inflammatory meds, supplemental hormones with iron that treat anemia, cholesterol meds, and diet are the standard treatments for kidney disease.
Cancer: No cancer is treated with an induced abortion, but a pregnant woman may choose to have an abortion rather than prolonging her treatment options.
Lethal fetal anomalies: Fatal fetal anomalies are not treated with an abortion, nor do they require an abortion, but abortion advocates simply say that it is a mercy for the child. This is euthanasia. The option they leave out is palliative care after the child is born, and allowing them to die naturally, held by their mothers.
Sepsis is another condition commonly named, but it was not mentioned in the above website. The treatment for sepsis is usually antibiotics. If severe enough to require hospitalization, the antibiotics are administered intravenously, and surgery possibly will be necessary to clean out any infected tissue. For some pregnancy complications where the baby has not died in utero, sometimes hospital supervision and antibiotics are recommended.
“What about rape/incest/other abuses?”
In the U.S., The Guttmacher Institute (the research arm of Planned Parenthood) puts abortion due to these reasons around 1%. That said, there is no medical necessity to end the life of a healthy child who was conceived in rape. It is understandable, however, why a woman who has been so traumatized in this way would seek an abortion. Every rape should be quickly reported to authorities, and the woman should seek immediate hospital care. Emergency contraception is typically provided to her, free of charge, when hospital staff treats her for any injuries and collects evidence for authorities.
“If abortion is banned, women will die in unsafe, illegal abortions!”
Abortion is the pet issue for Democrats, and if they can convince women that abortion is necessary healthcare, and a basic right that Republicans are trying to strip from them, they have a voting bloc for life. The biggest lie that helped get Roe decided was that if abortion wasn’t legalized, women would die in “back-alley” illegal abortions. They had a prominent abortion provider on their side to aid them in this as well, Dr. Bernard Nathanson.
From 1970 to 1979, Nathanson oversaw at least 75,000 abortions, 5,000 of which he performed himself, earning him the nickname of “abortion king”. However, his views regarding abortion changed in 1973 after he watched an abortion using ultrasound technology. He states in his memoir:
“By 1984, however, I had begun to ask myself more questions about abortion: what actually goes on in an abortion? I had done many, but abortion is a blind procedure. The doctor does not see what he’s doing. He puts an instrument into a uterus and he turns on a motor, and the suction machine goes on and something is vacuumed out; it ends up as a little pile of meat in a gauze bag.
I wanted to know what happened, so in 1984 I said to a friend of mine, who was doing 15 or maybe 20 abortions a day, “‘Look, do me a favor, Jay. Next Saturday, when you doing all these abortions, put an ultrasound device on the mother and tape it for me.’
He did, and when he looked at the tapes with me in an editing studio, he was so affected that he never did another abortion. I, though I had not done an abortion in five years, was shaken to the very roots of my soul by what I saw.”
This footage was the basis of his film, “The Silent Scream” which was a massive blow to abortion advocacy groups, and thus widely criticized.
He later admitted to his role in helping spread the lie about “back-alley” abortions.
“Knowing that if a true poll were taken, we would be soundly defeated, we simply fabricated the results of fictional polls. We announced to the media that we had taken polls and that 60% of Americans were in favor of permissive abortion. This is the tactic of the self-fulfilling lie. Few people care to be in the minority.
We aroused enough sympathy to sell our program of permissive abortion by fabricating the number of illegal abortions done annually in the U.S. The actual figure was approaching 100,000 but the figure we gave to the media repeatedly was 1,000,000. Repeating the big lie often enough convinces the public. The number of women dying from illegal abortions was around 200 – 250 annually. The figure constantly fed to the media was 10,000.
These false figures took root in the consciousness of Americans convincing many that we needed to crack the abortion law. Another myth we fed to the public through the media was that legalizing abortion would only mean that the abortions taking place illegally would then be done legally. In fact, of course, abortion is now being used as a primary method of birth control in the U.S. and the annual number of abortions has increased by 1500% since legalization.”
Nathanson’s admissions reveal that the abortion lobby generated a false media hysteria that led to the Roe v. Wade decision.
Under the pretense of protecting women, activists pushed abortion into the forefront of American culture, and they are still doing so today, using the same lies, myths, and misinformation.
Since the Dobbs decision, many states quickly enacted “trigger laws”, enforcing bans and restrictions on elective-induced abortions. This naturally spurred on litigation challenging those restrictions, Ohio being the latest example of this. As of November 17, 2023, a total of 38 cases have been filed challenging abortion bans in 23 states, of which 24 remain pending at either the trial or appellate levels.
Perhaps if accurate information were not suppressed by abortion organizations and activists, we Americans could finally have an honest dialogue about this polarizing issue and make truly informed decisions to base our laws on.
And how does this truth get out to the public and MSM?
I was disappointed that the family of RBG didn't refute those who chanted in her name. RGB believed that Roe was incorrectly decided because it involved a medical procedure and that was the province of the states - not the federal government. Had she lived, I assume she would have voted for the Dobs' decision returning the issue to the states to work its way through the system in a constitutional manner. That she and Scalia were besties shows what life looked like before the polarization. On a different issue, when Black ministers complained genocide was happening because of the large number of abortion clinics located in their community, like an ignorant fool, I thought they were Neanderthal kooks. I then actually listened to their reasoning so I now appreciate their point instead of dismissing it. The image of a Black woman doing a mock pulling of a baby doll out of her groin area was seared in my head. What would drive a woman to do that unless she was fully indoctrinated with Neo-Marxist rhetoric formulated by white men.