The GOP 2016 platform says that they would like to pass a Constitutional amendment making abortion illegal again. Donald Trump’s running mate, Mike Pence, has vowed to make abortion illegal if Trump gets elected. The Supreme Court ruling, Roe v. Wade, made abortion legal in 1973.
Banning it will not stop it completely, it will just drive desperate women to go get illegal abortions from “back-alley” doctors. Many women lost their lives due to complications from unsafe abortion procedures. Some women even tried to do it themselves.
One doctor, Dr. Waldo L. Fielding, a retired gynecologist described what his experience was like when he was practicing in the ’50s and ’60s. When talking about one case, he said:
“The patient also did not explain why she had attempted the abortion, and we did not ask. This was a decision she made for herself, and the reasons were hers alone. Yet this much was clear: The woman had put herself at total risk, and literally did not know whether she would live or die.”
We use the “coat-hanger” as a symbol for illegal abortions, but it was not entirely a myth, Dr. Fielding once saw a patient with the coat hanger still in place from trying to perform an abortion on herself.
In some places, abortion may have been legal, but the shame was too much for a woman. One woman in Russia ended up getting 12 abortions back in this same time. No one anywhere should be ashamed to get an abortion.
Dr. Fielding said this about what happened when the Roe v. Wade ruling came down:
“What Roe said was that ending a pregnancy could be carried out by medical personnel, in a medically accepted setting, thus conferring on women, finally, the full rights of first-class citizens — and freeing their doctors to treat them as such.”
Is this what you want Mr. Trump? Do you want women to risk their lives to terminate their pregnancies, Mr. Pence?
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