The latest video in Live Action’s “Pro-Life Replies” series counters the claim that sometimes abortion is medically necessary. It is generally assumed that in certain circumstances, a pregnant woman’s life may be put at grave risk, and abortion might be the only solution. But this idea is based on a misunderstanding. Abortion is the intentional taking of a human life in the womb — it is the targeting of a human being for destruction.
As neonatologist Dr. Kendra Kolb explains, there are different scenarios where abortion might be considered, but would still not be medically necessary. “What women deserve to know… even in the most high risk pregnancies, there is no medical reason why the life of the child must be directly intentionally ended with an abortion procedure,” she says:
But what about serious health conditions?
“In situations where the mothers’ life is truly in jeopardy, her pregnancy must end, and the baby must be delivered,” Dr. Kolb points out in the video. “These situations occur in cases of mothers who develop dangerously high blood pressure, have decompensating heart disease, life-threatening diabetes, cancer, or a number of other very serious medical conditions. Some babies do need to be delivered before they are able to survive outside of the womb, which occurs around 22 to 24 weeks of life. These situations are considered a preterm delivery and not an abortion.”
WATCH: Abortion is never medically necessary, and it’s not health care
If a pregnancy needs to end, a preterm delivery is safer than abortion
“There are also serious safety concerns related to late-term abortion. If a woman’s life is in imminent danger, a preterm delivery is a much safer option,” says Dr. Kolb. “An emergency C-section can be completed in less than an hour, while an abortion after 24 weeks, when the most common life-threatening life complications occur, takes 2-3 days to complete due to the necessary dilation process — in essence, delaying treatment and significantly increasing the risk of death and serious disability to the mother.”
Sometimes medical treatments to save a mother’s life cause the death of the baby. This is not an abortion.
Dr. Kolb also discusses medical treatments that may result in the loss of a child, such as chemotherapy, which could cause a miscarriage. But the purpose of this treatment is obviously not intended to cause the death of a child, but to treat a disease. The same applies in the case of an ectopic pregnancy, which is frequently life threatening.
“These situations are devastating, however, they are not considered abortions,” says Dr. Kolb. “Abortion unnecessarily ends the lives of children, and may also result in serious medical and psychological risks to women. Physicians have an ethical duty to deliver expert care for both patients — the mother and the child. A mother’s life is always of paramount importance, but abortion is never medically necessary to protect her life or health.”
In the video below, former abortionist Dr. Anthony Levatino reiterates many of the above points.
The Dublin Declaration is a document signed by over 1,000 healthcare providers, affirming that they agree with the idea that abortion is never medically necessary. So Dr. Kolb and Dr. Levatino, shown in the above videos, are not alone.
Dr. Kolb points out that many of the babies she treats in her work as a neonatologist are born at ages that are still able to be legally aborted. Some even have a chance of surviving outside the womb. She discusses the brutal D&E dismemberment abortion procedure, which tears a living child limb from torso, as well as the third trimester induction abortion, in which an abortionist injects feticide into the body of the baby to cause cardiac arrest.
Deliberately destroying a preborn child to save the life of his or her mother by dismemberment or by lethal injection is never medically necessary.
Watch the rest of the Pro-Life Replies series here.
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