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american life league

ABORTION

 

 

Believe it or not, many people don’t know
much about abortion.

This section presents some of the basics. The numbers are staggering, the methods cruel, and the history astonishing. Abortion simply must stop. Here’s all the information you need to know why.

Terms

The term “abortion” has traditionally meant the intentional or unintentional expulsion of the preborn child from the uterus before he or she has reached the age of viability (defined as the point after which the preborn child can survive outside the womb with or without medical assistance).

In practice, though, abortion in a number of countries (including the United States, Canada, and the People’s Republic of China) is legal until the moment of birth. In fact, some abortion methods such as dilation and extraction (D&X), the “partial birth” abortion, are designed to kill the preborn child when the birth process is almost complete.

At the other end of the spectrum, more and more drugs are being developed whose only purpose is to destroy the life of preborn children after fertilization (the union of the sperm and oocyte) and before implantation of the embryo or zygote in the mother’s uterus.

Definitions

The Planned Parenthood Federation of America, the United Nations World Health Organization, the American Medical Association, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and other pro-abortion organizations falsely define pregnancy as beginning at implantation and not at fertilization. In this manner, these groups claim that abortifacient drugs and devices such as the birth control pill and the intrauterine device (IUD) do not cause early abortions because they say that a pregnancy does not exist before actual implantation.

Therefore, the honest, accurate, and complete definition of the general term “abortion” would be “the intentional or unintentional expulsion or extraction of all of the preborn child (complete) or any part (incomplete) of the placenta or membranes at any time after fertilization and before the natural birth process is completed, whether this expulsion or extraction is performed by chemical medication or surgical instrument.”

Categories and Types

An “early abortion” generally refers to an abortion that occurs before the 12th completed week of gestation (first trimester); “late abortion” generally refers to an abortion that occurs after the 20th week of gestation.

A “spontaneous abortion” is the medical term for a miscarriage. This term is very important for pro-life activists to remember because many medical statistical categories and subsequent medical treatments (such as delivery of a child) do not distinguish between intentional and spontaneous abortion.

The current medical literature equates “legal abortion” with “therapeutic abortion.” The definition of the word “therapeutic,” however, means “treatment of disease.” The use of the term “therapeutic” is another pro-abortion attempt to sanitize a repulsive act, and it also implies that pregnancy is a disease—an assertion many pro-abortionists have made directly.

In any case, abortion is a direct attack on a preborn child that kills; it is murder.

More information on abortion below

Abortion: Life of the Mother

“However we may pity the mother whose health and even life is imperiled by the performance of her natural duty, there yet remains no sufficient reason for condoning the direct murder of the innocent.”― Pope Pius XI The Mother’s Life This excuse for allowing...

Abortion: Rape and Incest

Women have reported years of physical, emotional, and psychological difficulty following their abortions. Abortion did not solve their problem; it merely created additional ones. Rape and incest Rape and incest are similar in the sense that both are criminal acts. In...

Abortion Methods

There are three abortion classifications—surgical abortion, medical abortion, and chemical abortion. They are defined as follows: Surgical abortion: These are abortions that involve an invasive procedure. Major types of surgical abortions include: Suction...

Abortion: Health of the Mother

This is the most deceptive argument for aborting a child that exists today, yet those who support abortion argue that it is an essentially protected right that every expectant mother should have at her disposal when she chooses to abort her baby. In 1973, when the...

Abortion Exceptions

The idea of a total ban on all abortions makes some people uncomfortable. This is because we frequently hear that there are situations in which abortion, though a poor choice, is the best option. That, however, is untrue. Surgical abortion is a direct act that always...

Abortion History

1859 The American Medical Association condemns abortion except as necessary to preserve the life of either the mother or child. 1875 Every state in the United States has adopted laws banning abortion. 1916 Margaret Sanger forms the Birth Control League (now Planned...

Abortion: Fetal Abnormality

If it is acceptable to kill a disabled person in the womb, could it one day be considered permissible to kill a disabled infant? Fetal abnormality Expectant parents can treat a diagnosis of fetal deformity or other form of birth defect almost as if it were death...

Abortion Statistics

Current United States Data Total number of abortions in the U.S. 1973-2020: 63.6 million + 204 abortions per 1,000 live births (according to the Centers for Disease Control) Abortions per 100 pregnancies: 20.3 (Guttmacher Institute) U.S. abortions in 2020: ~930,160...

A CULTURE OF LIFE IS FOR ALL