How do we reply when people say that a law banning abortions would mean going back to sleazy back-alley abortions and the deaths of thousands of women? D.E. Langley, B.C.
This is the old wire coat hanger myth of the pro-abortionists. Dr. Bernard Nathanson has told the world, many times that he and the other founders of the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws (NARAL) pulled statistics from out of the air. They merely thought of a number and doubled it. So, they announced that there were over 1 000 000 illegal abortions every year in the United States and these resulted in the deaths of between 5000 and 10 000 women. All this was fiction, as Dr. Nathanson now writes.
In 1983, Dr. Thomas Hilgers, a distinguished physician and professor of obstetrics and gynecology, gave evidence before a Senate Committee dealing with the Hatch (Human Life) Amendment. His studies of statistics showed that the average number of deaths from abortions in the 25 years prior to legalizing abortions was 250, with the highest for any year being 388 in 1948. With the greater availability of penicillin the number of deaths dropped, and in 1972, the year before Roe v. Wade, the total number o deaths from all abortions, legal and illegal, was 39. This is a far cry from the 5-10 000 deaths quoted by NARAL; it is much further from the 4 110 deaths of unborn babies, every single day of the year, in the United States.
Dr. Hilgers’ studies showed that he best available statistics for the years 1940-1967 indicated an annual average of 98 000 illegal abortions. NARAL claimed one million.
Coathangers are out of date; unfortunately for the babies, prostaglandins are not.
What exactly is Down’s syndrome? How is it caused? Can it be cured? E.L., Vancouver, B.C.
Over a century ago, in 1866, a British physician called Langdon Down noted that there were abnormalities, including “slanted eyes” which were common to many mentally retarded people. He suggested that there was an underlying pathological reason for this, and he termed the condition “mongolism.” It came to be called Down’s syndrome.
About a century later Dr. Jerome Lejeune, Professor of fundamental genetics at the University of Rene Descartes- part of the University of Paris-discovered the cause of Down’s syndrome. The condition is caused by the person’s having an extra chromosome. Instead of having the normal 46 chromosomes, the person has 47 and the extra genetic material disturbs the mental ability to some extent-sometimes a little, sometimes more. Dr. Lejeune was the first person to identify a chromosomal aberration, and he opened up a new field of scientific enquiry. Since then hundreds more abnormalities have been found, over a quarter of them by Lejeune’s team. The discovery of the cause of Down’s syndrome was the first step, and since then Dr. Lejeune has been looking for ways to prevent it, and means to cure it. He believes that a cure is in sight.
What are the connections between Down’s syndrome and abortion? And infanticide? E.L. Vancouver, B.C.
Down’s syndrome can be detected in the child in the womb by amniocentesis. In some areas mothers in their late thirties are routinely tested. This is a “search and destroy mission” because its only purpose is to identify the “damaged” child and offer the mother the option of killing it.
For the baby who slips through this net the dangers are not over. Simple surgical procedures which are carried out without question on other babies are frequently withheld from these children. Their “quality of life” is not high enough. The Globe and Mail, June 22 1989 reported that a Down’s syndrome child was starved to death in a Montreal hospital, because the parents would not authorize simple surgery. To quote the Globe and Mail: “The baby went 13 days without food or water while nurses cuddled him, kept his mouth moist, played classical music and baptized him.
His parents will never know how loveable and loving Down’s syndrome children are, nor will they see that with the right stimulation many such children can reach reasonable educational levels.
I am not sure what amniocentesis is and I don’t like asking. Why is it so important? A.T., Cochrane, Ontario.
Quite simply, amniocentesis is a test in which some of the amniotic fluid, which surrounds the unborn child is withdrawn, and then analyzed for abnormal genes or chromosomes. The amniotic fluid is also examined for Rh incompatibility. The test was introduced by Sir William Liley to identify babies, before, during or immediately after birth. Today, however it is largely used to identify babies that possibility might be handicapped and then kill them. Sir William found it bitterly hard to accept that a procedure designed to save life was being used to “search and destroy.”
