WATCH: Abortion is never medically necessary, and it’s not health care

Planned Parenthood’s new president, Leana Wen, has been busy promoting the abortion corporation — but she hasn’t exactly been honest. Wen, an emergency room physician, is spreading the message that Planned Parenthood is a legitimate health care provider that women rely upon for things like cancer screenings, pap smears, and breast exams. But nearly everything she has said has been shown to be misleading and even false, including one of her most dangerous lies: that abortion itself is health care. Not only is abortion not health care, it’s also never medically necessary.

Abortion advocates frequently claim that in addition to being an issue of “choice,” abortion needs to be legal in case women become pregnant through rape or incest, in case their baby has a disability, or in case of a medical emergency — or even for any reason at all. Leaving aside the first two issues, are there any legitimate medical issues that could necessitate an abortion? The short answer is no.

READ: Why miscarriage, ectopic pregnancy, and early delivery are not abortions

One of the most frequent cases brought up to bolster the so-called medical need for abortion is that of Ireland’s Savita Halappanavar. The story often told is that Halappanavar repeatedly requested an abortion after beginning to have a miscarriage, but before her preborn baby had died. As abortion was still illegal in Ireland at the time, this request was denied, and Halappanavar ultimately, and tragically, died. Abortion activists quickly seized upon her death, arguing that if she had access to an abortion when she had requested it, she would have survived. The reality, however, is that Halappanavar died because her care was grossly mismanaged and abortion would not only not have saved her life, but some medical experts believe it could even have hastened her death.

Even abortionists admit that abortion isn’t necessary to save a woman’s life or health

In pregnancy, complications can arise — gestational diabetes, pre-eclampsia, problems with the placenta, heart problems — and absolutely none of them can be treated by abortion. This is something that even abortionists, like Don Sloan, have been forced to admit:

If a woman with a serious illness- heart disease, say, or diabetes- gets pregnant, the abortion procedure may be as dangerous for her as going through pregnancy … with diseases like lupus, multiple sclerosis, even breast cancer, the chance that pregnancy will make the disease worse is no greater that the chance that the disease will either stay the same or improve. And medical technology has advanced to a point where even women with diabetes and kidney disease can be seen through a pregnancy safely by a doctor who knows what he’s doing. We’ve come a long way since my mother’s time….

The idea of abortion to save the mothers’ life is something that people cling to because it sounds noble and pure- but medically speaking, it probably doesn’t exist. It’s a real stretch of our thinking.

Dr. Anthony Levatino, a former abortionist and practicing OB/GYN, likewise explained to Live Action founder and president Lila Rose how abortion does not save women’s lives:

A Conversation with a Former Abortionist: Is abortion ever medically necessary?

READ: Told she would die without an abortion, Chass left the abortion facility and saved her son

Ending a pregnancy through premature delivery may be necessary — but this isn’t an abortion

A pregnancy may well need to be ended to save a mother’s life — but not through abortion, which is the intentional destruction of a human being. A woman in the second trimester with life-threatening pre-eclampsia or heart problems will face multiple options, but none of them will be abortion. Depending on the baby’s gestational age, doctors may give the baby steroid shots or buy them both time with bed rest and medication, but premature delivery may be necessary, as Dr. Levatino pointed out — and this may or may not result in the unfortunate and unintentional death of the baby, born too early. Again, this is not an abortion — it is not the intentional taking of the child’s life. It is a premature delivery, not an act of destruction.

In the case of a life-threatening emergency, later abortion — which takes days — isn’t advisable

Even if it is unlikely or impossible for the baby to survive, an abortion is not going to be the best course of action, especially in the second or third trimester. Abortions under those circumstances take multiple days, and if a mother is truly experiencing a life-threatening emergency, the baby would need to be delivered right away. In the case of an ectopic pregnancy, it is likely that the baby will die, but again, this is not considered an abortion as the intent is not to kill the child, but to save the mother’s life.

Over 1,000 medical experts signed a declaration affirming that direct abortion is never medically necessary to save the life of a woman. Some treatments may result in the death of a preborn child, but there is a fundamental difference between premature delivery and a procedure which intentionally destroys the life of a human being.

Leana Wen can try to change the story, but the facts remain the same. Abortion is not health care.