Physicians for Human Rights claims protecting preborn babies is harmful

Based on a new report from a group called Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), abortion enthusiasts seem to believe that killing preborn children is a treatment — and potentially even a cure — for every and any illness or complication that a woman can develop, either before or during pregnancy.

Key Takeaways:

• A report from Physicians for Human Rights claims that pro-life laws are causing harm to women across every medical specialty, even among those who aren't pregnant.

• The report is based on 33 interviews with doctors from 20 states, who claim that pro-life laws are putting women's lives at risk from medical emergencies and even cancer diagnoses.

• Every pro-life law carries an exception to allow induced abortion — the direct and intentional killing of a preborn child — when the mother's health or life is threatened, even though direct and intentional killing is not medically necessary.

• PHR wants to remove any medical reasoning behind abortions to ensure that abortion is elective at all points of pregnancy.

The Details:

The report, called Cascading Harms: How Abortion Bans Lead to Discriminatory Care Across Medical Specialties, makes it sound as though intentionally killing innocent preborn children is the only way pregnant women with chronic or life-threatening conditions can survive, and implies that doctors are not intelligent enough to understand the difference between treating a patient, ending a pregnancy, and directly and intentionally killing a preborn human being.

The report from PHR is based on 33 interviews with doctors from 20 states, including oncologists, neurologists, hematologists, cardiologists, pulmonologists, obstetricians and gynecologists, and dermatologists. The report claims it found that "abortion bans have a widespread chilling effect on health care as clinicians are forced to weigh legal risks, often deviating from standards of care or waiting until patients become severely ill to intervene."

Michele Heisler, MD, MPA, medical director at PRH and professor of internal medicine and public health at the University of Michigan, claimed, "The consequences of state abortion bans are not only manifesting in harms to reproductive health care, but across many other medical specialties. From cancer care to pulmonology and beyond, the harms of abortion bans are cascading across the health system. Our research shows that abortion bans are undermining fundamental principles of medicine and patient autonomy — leading to discrimination in care to women, girls, and pregnant patients."

In other words, PHR thinks that without allowing the intentional killing of humans in the womb, the entire health care system will crumble — even for females who are not pregnant.

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The report examined delays in emergency care including "patients being bounced between facilities, arriving septic or with irreversible organ damage," "Physicians ... prescribing less effective drugs out of fear of legal repercussions...," pharmacies allegedly denying mifepristone, misoprostol, and methotrexate prescriptions for non-abortion use, and "worsening 'maternity care deserts,'" along with "gaps in cancer and cardiac care."

No pro-life law prohibits women from receiving emergency medical care, and they even allow unnecessary abortions in such emergencies. In addition, maternity care deserts exist in pro-abortion states, and delays in emergency care occur in states that allow abortion through all nine months of pregnancy, indicating that the medical neglect and lack of maternity care plaguing the country have nothing to do with pro-life laws but are part of a much bigger problem.

Zoom In:

'Waiting almost for irreversible damage'

One doctor, an OB/GYN, is alleged to have told PHR, "What we are doing is sitting and waiting almost for irreversible damage to occur before we do something and offer them [abortion care]."

First of all, let's not glance over the word "almost," which is tucked in there, showing that most doctors are not actually waiting for irreversible damage to occur before providing a woman with medical care. It is unclear what was said by the doctor instead of "abortion care," which was terminology chosen by PHR to replace the doctor's actual quote.

The doctor's full quote included a patient who came in at 15 weeks with chronic kidney disease. She appeared healthy, but her labs told another story. The doctor implied that a doctor might look at her and ignore the labwork because of her appearance of good health. If that were true, it would be horribly poor medical care, but it would have nothing to do with abortion laws.

Every pro-life law allows for an induced abortion to be committed when the life (or health) of the mother is at risk. But more importantly, ending a pregnancy to protect the life of the mother is not against the law when it doesn't involve intentionally killing the baby before ending the pregnancy.

Pregnancies can be ended in emergency situations by c-section and preterm delivery, which are not considered induced abortions under the law, since the intent is not to end the life of the baby but to save the life of the mother. If a child dies due to prematurity after a medically necessary preterm delivery (and was not intentionally killed or purposefully left to die), this is not considered an abortion.

Intent matters.

Stories in the media about women being denied medically necessary abortions have been purposefully misleading.

'Now they're critically ill and I'm trying to just keep them alive'

This quote from a pulmonologist implies that women were not being properly followed by their medical team when they were pregnant: "We had critical care docs who told us that critically ill women showed up in my intensive care unit (ICU) who had these congenital heart problems or other conditions that had made pregnancy really unsafe for them," said the pulmonologist. "They hadn’t been able to access abortion. And now they’re critically ill in my ICU and I’m trying to just keep them alive."

Women with chronic health conditions during pregnancy should be followed by their medical team in addition to an OB/GYN, which raises serious questions about the care the women were receiving prior to becoming pregnant and critically ill.

But again, if a pregnant woman is in critical condition, there is no law preventing a doctor from ending the pregnancy without the intentional killing of her child.

'Needing to delay the appropriate treatment for cancer'

Another OB told PHR, "There are definitely situations that I’ve seen on more than one occasion where a patient [who came here for abortion care] was told in her home state that her pregnancy did not pose enough of a threat to her life, regardless of her cancer diagnosis and regardless of needing to delay the appropriate treatment for cancer.” 

It's important to note that women facing medical conditions while pregnant often want to protect their baby's lives. Many women will delay cancer treatment until they are out of the first trimester. Treatments all depend on the exact diagnosis, recommended treatment plan, and the baby's age.

Regardless, chemotherapy and other cancer treatments are not prohibited under pro-life laws, because they do not involve directly killing the preborn baby. If the child is harmed as a secondary result of the cancer treatment, this would not be considered an abortion. Additionally, many cancer treatments are considered safe during pregnancy.

Women have choices — just not the choice to intentionally kill their babies.

'Afraid of possible pregnancy'

PHR went as far as to claim that women are suffering from poor medical care because of pro-life laws, even when they aren't pregnant. Essentially, women are being discriminated against because of their healthy fertility.

"What we see is patients who are put on these really inadequate, inappropriate therapies because people are afraid of the possible pregnancy, which raises the question of abortion that physicians in abortion ban states do not want to deal with," a neurologist told PHR.

It's quite telling that it isn't doctors who are necessarily "afraid" of potential pregnancies but that they "do not want to deal with" a patient getting pregnant. So who is "afraid"? Is it possible that women themselves do not want to take medications that could cause harm to their child should they become pregnant? Are doctors discriminating against females because of their ability to become pregnant?

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Reality Check:

Abortion is not health care

It appears that the doctors affiliated with PHR believe abortion to be a cure or vital treatment for every health condition a woman might encounter in her childbearing years. But intentionally killing a preborn baby is not medically necessary, and is not the standard of care for any health condition.

Ending the pregnancy might be necessary, even if the child dies as a result. But intentionally and deliberately killing the child is an entirely different act. PHR does doctors a disservice by assuming there is no difference and acting as though it's impossible for doctors to understand the difference between active killing and accidental death in connection with a medical treatment.

For example, an ectopic pregnancy must be treated to preserve the mother's life. The child will not survive if the mother dies. Treating the ectopic pregnancy will result in the child's death, but the intention of that treatment is not to kill the child. The doctor is not actively dismembering or poisoning the child.

Again, intent matters.

Medical neglect occurs in pro-abortion states

What PHR fails to mention is that medical neglect is not exclusive to states that protect preborn babies from abortion. Earlier this year, the Associated Press admitted, "Serious violations that jeopardized a mother or her fetus' health occurred in states with and without abortion bans..." (emphasis added).

The AP reported that pregnant women are sometimes denied appropriate medical care — not because of pro-life laws, but because of doctor or hospital negligence or misdiagnosis. Yet, PHR and major media outlets are dedicated to blaming pro-life state laws for substandard care.

The Bottom Line:

PHR believes that doctors have a "duty" to carry out abortions, and it wants the government to "[e]nact and implement national laws and policies that ensure rights and remove barriers to abortion care and maternal health care" and "repeal state-level abortion bans as well as all other restrictive laws and regulations that effectively obstruct access to abortion..."

In addition to other pro-abortion efforts, PHR wants legislators to remove "all medically unnecessary requirements for provision of abortion care." This means it doesn't want there to be any medical requirement for abortion to be carried out.

In other words, PHR doctors want elective abortion to be legal throughout pregnancy.

These doctors aren't worried about protecting women who face medical challenges while pregnant. They're not even worried about protecting human rights. They are worried about protecting abortion.