Some Truth About Abortion and Women’s Health Care
Here’s my experience. When I was a medical student at LA County-USC Medical Center, I would often spend evenings in the ER, helping and learning. In 1969-72, a big part of our job was trying to save girls who had been mutilated by self-induced or back-alley abortions. I remember six girls that we could not save, whose hands I held as they died. Young girls; who had drunk a little too much on a date one night. Or ended up in the back seat of a car, planning on some kisses and cuddling, but ending up as the victim of date rape. And missed a period. And then another. And then there was nowhere to go and panic ensued; until a “friend” told them about “a guy downtown”.
We know that making abortion illegal does not decrease its incidence, it only makes it much more dangerous and deadly.
This paper in the Lancet Volume 388, No. 10041, p258–267, 16 July 2016. reviews abortion rates over the years in countries where the procedure is illegal and where it is illegal. Where it is illegal, the average rate is 37/1000. Where it is legal, the rate is 35/1000, Where free family planning services are provided, the abortion rate plunges to 5-7/1000. 
In the United States the abortion rate has continued to plummet since abortion became legal, and family planning has become more available to women of all income groups. What we're doing already is working! The reasons for this are obvious. Abortion will happen whether legal or not. Of course, in the illegal culture, an "abortion racket" quickly develops, and the procedure is "sold" effectively, as an easy, breezy, painless little thing. The procedures done are unsafe and often filthy and barbaric, and sometimes deadly. The abortion racketeer has only one goal: perform as many abortions as possible and make as much money as possible. So, there is no counseling, no information about adoption alternatives, and no followup or family planning offered. And if the woman becomes a criminal for having an abortion, she’ll do everything possible to cover it up and not expose the abortion racketeer. She’s also more likely to run away from her family, get into criminal activities, and may have to sell her body to survive.
On the other hand, in medical facilities like Planned Parenthood, staff are aware that abortion is a VERY BIG thing, safe and effective medical care and effective counseling are provided, and support for maintaining pregnancy/adoption is seen as an option. Very importantly, the patient develops a relationship with the facility which offers mainly contraception and education. These medical facilities want to decrease the patient's chances of another unplanned pregnancy, and another abortion, whereas the racketeer abortionist only wants more abortion opportunities.
If you make abortion illegal it simply drives the procedure underground. And of course when it is illegal, it doesn't get reported, and so the “official” abortion rate goes down, while the actual rate increases. So when we make abortion illegal we simply kill more unborn babies and maim and kill more of their mothers.
In an effort to stop abortion, many good-hearted people advocate criminalizing it. Unfortunately,
Let’s keep abortion legal, safe and rarely performed by offering effective sex education and free family planning to everyone of reproductive age.
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