Former abortionist: Abortion is never medically necessary to save the life of the mother

At the October 19, 2016, presidential debate, Hillary Clinton defended abortion in the third trimester. She claimed that abortions at these late stages are necessary to save the lives of women; therefore, abortion must remain legal. But former abortionist Dr. Anthony Levatino has testified that abortions never have to be committed to save a woman’s life.

Dr. Levatino committed over 1,200 abortions before his pro-life conversion, which he talks about here. In a video, he illustrates the third trimester induction procedure.

An induction abortion requires slowly dilating a woman’s cervix over the course of several days. Laminaria is then placed inside the woman’s body to absorb fluid and slowly open the woman’s womb, readying her body to expel her baby. An injection of digoxin is then used to kill the child, and the woman goes into labor to deliver her child stillborn.

Levatino explains the procedure in the following video:

3rd Trimester Induction Abortion: Injection and Stillbirth

On May 17, 2012, Dr. Levatino testified before Congress in support of the District of Columbia Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act:

In cases where a pregnancy places a woman in danger of death or grave physical injury, a doctor more often than not doesn’t have 36 hours, much less 72 hours, to resolve the problem. Let me illustrate with a real-life case that I managed while at the Albany Medical Center. A patient arrived one night at 28 weeks gestation with severe pre-eclampsia or toxemia. Her blood pressure on admission was 220/160. A normal blood pressure is approximately 120/80. This patient’s pregnancy was a threat to her life and the life of her unborn child. She could very well be minutes or hours away from a major stroke.

This case was managed successfully by rapidly stabilizing the patient’s blood pressure and “terminating” her pregnancy by Cesarean section. She and her baby did well.

This is a typical case in the world of high-risk obstetrics. In most such cases, any attempt to perform an abortion “to save the mother’s life” would entail undue and dangerous delay in providing appropriate, truly life-saving care. During my time at Albany Medical Center I managed hundreds of such cases by “terminating” pregnancies to save mother’s lives. In all those cases, the number of unborn children that I had to deliberately kill was zero.

Levatino is an expert who has both committed abortions and saved preborn babies in high risk pregnancies, and his testimony shows that abortion advocates are wrong about late-term abortions:

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

We hope all candidates, regardless of party, will unite to protect our most vulnerable.