Women really do want a choice

Well, look at this. A survey reveals that “Women Want to Know About Abortion Risks.” Who ever thought they didn’t? Hmm? Abortion clinics, maybe? The “choice” movement? Funny name for that movement….funny as in ‘odd.’

A new survey has found that women want to be thoroughly informed of all possible risks associated with elective medical procedures, and they generally want as much or more information when it comes to abortion.

This comes out 33 years after Roe v. Wade.

The survey of 187 women seeking obstetric and gynecological services at a Wisconsin women’s health clinic was published in the Journal of Medical Ethics in July. The women were given a short survey in which they were asked to state their preferences for information about elective medical procedures. They ranked the degree of information they preferred regarding alternative treatments and complication rates, and rated the severity of different types of complications, ranging in severity from headaches to death.

The results showed that 95 percent of patients wished to be informed of all the risks of a procedure and 69 percent wanted to be informed of all alternative treatments, not just the alternatives preferred by their doctor.

Moreover, in their ranking of the seriousness of complications, mental health complications ranked as very serious, only slightly below the risk of death or heart disease. This finding may be especially important to the abortion debate since recent peer-reviewed studies have linked abortion to increased rates of mental health problems, such as suicidal behavior, clinical depression, anxiety disorders, substance abuse, and sleep disorders.

“Doctors should anticipate that most women desire information on every potential risk, even risks that doctors may judge to be less serious or inconsequentially rare, and they will generally consider this information to be relevant to their decisions regarding elective procedures,” the authors wrote. 

This is exactly what the South Dakota legislature learned in its exhaustive study of the effects of abortion on women over these 33 years. They set out to determine what they, as lawmakers, should do in their state to serve the needs of women regarding abortion. So last year, they set up the South Dakota Task Force to Study Abortion. Committees in both the House and Senate heard evidence from medical experts, scientists, mental health experts, abortionists, clinic workers, and 2,000 post-abortive women, among other testimonies.

The result was a 71 page report. It’s staggering to read.

Here’s a pdf version of that report.

Get a copy of it now, before elections come around again, and especially that referendum in South Dakota on the law to protect life that resulted from this study. Read this report. Every American should. 

“They heard testimony from a number of women who had undergone abortions and who testified how they became depressed and were haunted by suicidal ideation. In every instance they testified about the magnitude of their loss and how that loss adversely affected their lives once they understood that the procedure terminated the life of their existing offspring…The picture that emerged from the record before both the House and Senate committees was that it was common for women to sign consents for abortion without being truly informed.” 

These women reported that they were pressured into the abortion, and typically didn’t understand the procedure, and felt misled by abortion providers.

“The providers told them that there was ‘nothing but tissue’ inside of them. Many of the women testified or reported to post-abortion counselors that if they had been given accurate information, they would not have submitted to the abortion…”

Now this same information is coming out in this new survey in the Journal of Medical Ethics.

“Our survey shows that most women don’t want doctors to screen which information they are told about risks,” he said. “They want to judge the evidence for themselves. They clearly prefer to be fully informed about all possible complications, even if abortion providers insist that the causal links between abortion and these statistically linked complications have yet to be fully proven to the abortionist’s satisfaction.”

To the abortionist’s satisfaction?

South Dakota got way ahead of that one.

“The Legislature found that as a matter of scientific fact an abortion terminates the life of a whole separate unique living human being…

And

“The Legislature finds that pregnant women contemplating the termination of their right to their relationship with their unborn children, including women contemplating such termination by an abortion procedure, are faced with making a profound decision most often under stress and pressures from circumstances and from other persons, and that there exists a need for special protection of the rights of such pregnant women, and that the State of South Dakota has a compelling interest in providing such protection.”

And that’s only page 5. About 63 pages later, the task force report comes to this conclusion:

“The state, the mother, and the child all have interests that justify changing the laws of the state of South Dakota…In fact, the state not only has an interest, it has a duty to change the law. Because of this duty, the state cannot continue to protect the abortion practice, for the right and duty to preserve life cannot co-exist with a right to destroy it.”

The 63 pages in between are stunning in the breadth and scope of what they reveal, including “The Incorrect Assumptions of the Roe v. Wade Decision.” How many members of the abortion movement even know that? I think that lots of people who believe abortion is a necessary “choice” to give women would actually change their minds if they became totally informed. At the very least, they shouldn’t keep the women who are making the “choice” from that information. Women want it and deserve it. Anyone disagree?