ABORTION
Initially, abortions have been illegal except when essential
for safety III' health. When performed illegally, they have been subject to no
controls. Those who performed them, including so-called doctors, often have been
fly-by-night individuals with little or no medical knowledge, working under
conditions not completely sanitary, trusting to luck that nothing would go
wrong that could be traced to them.
The death toll from illegal abortions has
been tragically high, and the toll in illness and injury even higher. No
accurate figures are available because so few cases have been reported.
Sterility may result from an abortion, unreported and performed years earlier,
and the abortion may not be suspected as the cause even by the victim herself.
Some drugstores have carried on a lucrative under-the-counter business in drugs
"guaranteed" to produce abortion. These are useless or dangerous
drugs, and it has not been easy to obtain much information about their effects.
Fortunately, there has been a trend recently to liberalization of abortion laws
in some states.
While some people feel that destroying embryonic human life
is never justified-and we respect the religious, ethical or moral grounds on
which they base their opinions-we do not agree with them, and we are sure they
will respect our viewpoint as we respect theirs. Our conviction is that the
life of a mother should not be sacrificed or endangered, with all that means to
her present children and possibly her future children, to maintain the life of
an unborn infant whose survival chances often are slim. This places great
responsibility upon physicians who must decide whether or not an abortion is
necessary. In some cases, the decision may not be difficult.
In a tubal or
ectopic pregnancy, for example, the embryo develops outside the uterus, in the
fallopian tube which leads into it from the ovary. Fortunately, this is a rare
condition. Such embryos can- not survive; they die in one way or another,
sometimes bursting through the tube. At that point, the danger to the mother's
life is great. Therefore tubal pregnancy is considered a clear-cut reason for
terminating pregnancy by removing the embryo rather than waiting for it to die,
thus endangering the mother's life. Most cases are not so clear-cut.
The
doctor's decision may be a difficult one. But in many other circumstances
doctors are used to, are forced to, make difficult decisions. They must do
their best to decide wisely. One important reason for a woman to have a
complete medical checkup prior to pregnancy is that in most cases it will
indicate whether or not she can safely have a baby, avoiding need for a
difficult decision -for her and for her doctor-after she has conceived.
