Twelve Myths of Abortion

by Dr. Phil Stringer (Florida)

"The spirit of God hath made me, and the breath of the Almighty hath given me life" (Job 33:4)

Men in rebellion against God often justify their actions with ideas and myths that stem from the imagination of their evil hearts (Romans 1:21; Proverbs 6:18). In the discussion of abortion, this mythology is clearly seen. Statements that are obviously untrue are repeated again and again as if the frequency of their utterance could give them credibility. When anyone attempts to question or examine these statements, he is attacked viciously, as if the viciousness of the attack could disprove the substance of the question. We will examine 12 of the many myths of abortion.

MYTH 1:

An unborn fetus is only a mass of tissue.

One pro-abortion pamphlet states, "A fetus is only a wad of cells adhering to the wall of a uterus -- until these cells free themselves and become independent."

Many young women take comfort in the idea that their abortions only deal with removing tissue cells like removing a tumor or dead skin. But upon what rational examination is this based? More than one young woman has reported coming out from under the anesthetic early to be shocked at seeing fingers, facial parts, arms, and legs being dumped in the trash. Even a casual examination of fetal development disproves this myth.

• At conception, a new and totally different human being with 48 chromosomes (the same as any human) exists, having the capability of replacing his own dying cells.

• On the 13th day, the fetus is one-fourth of an inch long with a brain, human

• proportions, eyes, ears, mouth, kidney, liver, stomach, intestines, and a spinal cord and nervous system.

• By the 18th day, a heart in its early stages of development has begun pumping its own blood.

• At six and one-half weeks, the skeleton is complete, and the first movements are made. The two-month-old fetus attains the ability to grasp objects, swim, hiccup, suck his thumb, and wakes and sleeps with regularity.

• At the 11th week stage, all body systems are formed and at work. The fetus now breathes, swallows, is sensitive to pain, and is an independent individual. Present systems will grow and mature, but nothing new will develop in the body.

• The 16-week-old fetus has grown to five and one-half inches long. Toes and fingers have now formed, and facial features are clearly evident.

• "Quickening" is first felt at 18 weeks as the fetus, now active and energetic, flexes its muscles, punches, and kicks.

• By the 20th week, which represents the first half of the gestation period, babies are often born prematurely and alive.

By any standard, the unborn child is more than a tumor or a wad of tissue. If you simply believe in granting the "benefit of the doubt," abortion should be prohibited.

Every abortion stops a beating heart, ends the development of a unique DNA code, and sheds innocent blood.

If a baby is only a "wad of cells" at conception, what process turns it into more than a wad of cells?

MYTH 2:

An unborn fetus cannot feel pain.

There is an obvious question to be asked in response to this myth: How do you know?

Unborn babies obviously experience sensations, respond to outside stimuli, recognize familiar voices, etc. It is only reasonable to assume that some sensations of pain occur in their development, according to evidence gained by using ultra-sound and fiber-optic cameras. By four months of development, babies are frowning, moving their lips, and grasping with their hands.

When you consider the methods used to cause abortion, it is clear that they are all an assault on, and a shock to, and trace of a nervous system. There are eight techniques used for inducing abortions, depending on the stage of the child’s growth in the womb. They are:

• Suction aspiration
• Dilatation and curettage
• Dilatation and evacuation
• Prostaglandin
• Salt Poisoning
• Hysterotomy
• Partial-birth Abortion
• Fetal Reproduction

Suction Aspiration

Suction aspiration abortion (or menstrual extraction if done early in pregnancy) is used in 95% of induced abortions. A powerful suction tube is inserted into the womb through the dilated cervix. This dismembers the body of the developing baby and tears the placenta from the uterus, sucking them into a container. These body parts are usually recognizable as arms, legs, the head, etc. Great care must be used to prevent the uterus from being punctured during this procedure. Uterine hemorrhage and infection can easily result if any fetal or placental tissue is left behind in the uterus.

Dilation and Curettage (D&C)

In this technique, the cervix is dilated or stretched to permit insertion of a loop-shaped steel knife in order to scrape the wall of the uterus. This cuts the baby’s body into pieces and cuts the placenta from the uterine wall. Bleeding is sometimes considerable.

This method is used primarily during the seventh to 12th weeks of pregnancy and should not be confused with therapeutic D&C, done with a blunt curette for reasons other than undesired pregnancy.

Dilation and Evacuation (D&E)

Used to remove a child from the womb who is as old as 18 weeks, this method is similar to the D&C. The difference is that forceps are used to grasp part of the developing baby who already has calcified bones. The parts must be twisted and torn away, the placenta sliced away, and bleeding is profuse.

Salt Poisoning

Otherwise known as "saline amniocentesis" or "salting out," this technique is used after 16 weeks of pregnancy, when enough fluid has accumulated in the amniotic fluid sac surrounding the baby.

A needle is inserted though the mother’s abdomen directly into the sac, and a solution of concentrated salt is injected into it. The baby breathes in, swallowing the salt, and is thereby poisoned. After about an hour, the child dies. The mother usually goes into labor approximately a day later, delivering a dead, burned, and shriveled baby. This is the second most common method of inducing abortion. It is outlawed in Japan and other countries because of inherent risks to the mother.

Prostaglandin

Prostaglandin are hormones which assist the birth process. Injecting concentrations of them into the amniotic sac induces violent labor and premature birth of a child usually to young to survive. Oftentimes salt or another toxin is first injected to assure that the baby will be delivered dead, since some babies have trauma of prostaglandin birth at this stage, and have been delivered alive. This method is usually used during the second half of the pregnancy. A self-administered prostaglandin suppository is also being developed for first trimester abortion. Serious side-effects and complications from prostaglandin use, including cardiac arrest and rupture of the uterus can be unpredictable and very severe.

Hysterotomy

Similar to the Cesarean Section, this method is generally used if the salt poisoning or prostaglandin methods fail. Sometimes babies are born alive during this procedure which raises questions as to how and when the infants are killed and by whom. Some infants who are attended to after a hysterotomy have been known to survive and were subsequently accepted by their natural mothers, or placed in adoptive homes.

This method offers the highest risk to the health of the mother. The risk of mortality from hysterotomy is two times greater than risk from D&E.

Partial Birth Abortions

A partial-birth abortion is the killing of a baby seconds before birth. The abortionist turns the baby around and pulls the boy or girl out of the womb feet first. "Delivery" is stopped when just the top of the baby’s head is the only part of the baby still within the birth canal. The abortionist then uses scissors to puncture the back of the baby’s head at the base of the skull, inserts a suction tube and sucks the baby’s brains out. After the baby’s head is collapsed, "delivery" is completed.

In 1996 a federal law, the Partial-birth Abortion Act, to outlaw this inhumane, barbaric assassination of defenseless babies, was passed by Congress, but President Bill Clinton vetoed the measure saying that the mother’s health was not considered. At full term, a normal birth would have much lower risk to the health of the mother. Efforts to override the President’s veto have thus far consistently failed.

Who can guarantee that such barbaric practices do not cause the unborn baby any pain?

MYTH 3:

Only the government can determine personhood.

Besides being contrary to the Bible and all semblance of logic, this is obviously not what the Founders of our country had in mind.

The Preamble to the Constitution, the paragraph that describes why the Constitution was created, states the following:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

The Fifth Amendments says:

No personal shall be ... deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law ....

The Declaration of Independence states:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

The definition of posterity is "all future generations." To have future generations, we must have at some time persons in the making in embryo, in fetus, and in the child stage. If we do not, or if all of these middle phases can be legally eliminated, we will not have future generations, and we will have violated one of the basic tenets of the Constitution. The decision to deprive our Posterity of Life has been made without "assistance of counsel for his (her) defense" and is in direct violation of both the Fifth and Sixth Amendments.

Abraham Lincoln, referring to slavery, discussed how the Declaration of Independence must be applied to all men, or it could not be guaranteed for any man. He said:

This was their majestic interpretation of the economy of the Universe. This was their lofty, and wise, and noble understanding of the justice of the Creator to His creatures. Yes, gentlemen, to all His creatures, to the whole great family of man. In their enlightened belief, nothing stamped with the divine image and likeness was sent into the world to be trodden on .... They grasped not only the whole race of man then living, but they reached forward and seized upon the farthest posterity. They erected a beacon to guide their children and their children’s children, and the countless myriads who should inhabit the earth in other ages.

He warned also of the danger we would face if we closed our eyes to the value of life in any category of human beings:

I should like to know if taking this old Declaration of Independence, which declares that all men are equal upon principle, and making exceptions to it continues, where will it stop? If one man says it does not mean a Negro, why cannot another say it does not mean some other man?

No government can be trusted with defining personhood. No matter what the Nazi government said about the Jews, they were still persons. No matter what the United States Supreme Court of the last century said about Negroes, they are still persons. That mistake led to the American Civil War. No matter what the modern Supreme Court says about unborn babies, they are still persons.

MYTH 4:

The vast majority of Americans support abortion.

Many polls have been taken covering the abortion issue. The answers you get depend primarily on how you ask the questions. If you ask Americans if they want all abortions banned, a clear majority say no. Many Americans feel that pregnancy in the aftermath of rape, or when the mother’s health is in danger, is legitimate. Much false information about these two situations exists. (Less than two percent of abortions are related to these causes.) However, if you ask Americans if they approve of abortion as a method of birth control, a clear majority also say no. If you ask Americans if they think that abortions should be taxpayer-funded, an overwhelming majority are clearly opposed.

The issue of public support, however, is a false one. If a majority of people supported slavery, would that make it right? If a majority wanted to practice genocide against the Jews, would that make it right?

Our Founders wanted some clear laws that would protect minorities from the whims of the majority. They clearly determined that protecting the "right to life" was one of the unalterable purposes of government. The right to life is not based upon a majority decision; it is a God-given right.

MYTH 5:

The abortion issue is simply an issued of reproductive freedom for women.

Reproductive freedom deals with the subject of conception. Once you have conceived a child, you have already reproduced yourself. The subject of abortion has to do with how we will treat babies after reproduction has already taken place. There is no specific reason to question that life begins at conception.

Mayo Clinic geneticist Hymie Gordon testified, "I have never encountered in my reading -- long before I became concerned with abortion, euthanasia, and so on -- anyone who has argued that life did not begin at the moment of conception ...." There has been no argument about these matters.

Micheline Matthew Roth, a medical school professor at Harvard said:

In biology and in medicine it is an accepted fact that the life of any individual organism reproducing by sexual reproduction begins at conception .... No experiments have disproved this finding. So, it is scientifically correct to say that an individual life begins at conception ... and that this developing human is always a member of our species in all stages of its life.

No matter how much mythology you may hear, this is not a women’s freedom issue. Fully half of the babies aborted are women.

As the two popular bumper stickers put it: "Equal rights for unborn women" and "Abortion is the ultimate form of child abuse."

MYTH 6:

Abortion is a "separation of church and state" issue.

The myth is repeatedly quoted. The illogical premise is simply that, since opposition to abortion comes from religion, no law can be made restricting it. But religious principles also cause opposition to all other murders also. Religious principles also lead to the opposition of incest, child molesting, theft, rape, and violence. Does anyone suggest that laws restricting these activities are a violation of separation of church and state? People cry that you cannot legislate morality, but the laws against murder are legislating morality. The truth is, it is not Christians who are trying to oppose their will on others. The ultimate imposition of your will on other human begins is to dissect them or poison them and take away their right to life.

When liberals demand that everyone pay taxes to pay for other people’s abortions, they are trying to impose their will on other people. When they demand that everyone "donate" tax moneys to provide school clinics and counselors to promote abortion, they are trying to impose their religious convictions on society as a whole.

MYTH 7:

Women have a Constitutional right to abortion

During the discussion of the Human Life Amendment, the Religious Coalition for Abortion Rights ran this text in an ad:

Right now the United States Senate is holding hearings on a Constitutional Amendment to outlaw abortion.

This effort, backed by a handful of Senators, seriously threatens the religious freedom of every American.

If they succeed, you will be forced to accept, as law, one narrow religious and moral belief -- even if it is not your own, your church’s, or your synagogue’s.

The Religious Coalition for Abortion rights of New York State represents most of the country’s major religions. We are organizations like the American Baptist Churches, NYS; the N.Y. Federation of Reform Synagogues; The Episcopal Church; the United Presbyterian Church, Synod of the Northeast; the United Church of Christ; and the United Methodist Church, whose positions on abortion you might not be aware of.

We believe abortion is an individual decision and, therefore, your God-given right. While we support a woman’s choice to become a mother, we also support her choice not to. But most importantly, we feel no religious group has the right to use the power of politics to impose their beliefs on you.

Yet this is precisely what the Constitutional Amendment would do. By outlawing abortion, it will rob you of the right to make your most personal decisions according to your own conscience.

By your support of the Religious Coalition for Abortion Rights, we can work together to stop this small group from forcing you to practice what they preach.

Our country’s most cherished inalienable right is being threatened: Freedom.

Planned Parenthood has stated that the passing of a "Human Life Amendment" would be the first time a Constitutional right was ever taken from the American people.

But an obvious question remains unanswered: Where in the Constitution is the right to abortion even mentioned? To the contrary, our government was established to protect our right to life.

In order to support his pro-abortion Roe v. Wade decision, Justice Blackmum invented a "right to privacy" which is unmentioned in the Constitution and twisted it to refer to abortion. The "Constitutional right to abortion" exists only in a liberal fantasy world. It is only a product of their imaginations. It is found nowhere in the Constitution.

MYTH 8:

Abortion is too important a decision to be left up to the government.

In a free society, very few decisions are made by the government. The only legitimate roles for the government are protecting the nation from foreign invasion and protecting individuals from having force exerted against them.

However, abortion is the ultimate expression of force against a helpless individual. Who is to defend those that are helpless from aggressive life-threatening forces?

Cultures may be judged in many ways, but, ultimately, they will be judged by this: how did they treat the most helpless members of society?

Should it be a private decision whether or not to take a human life? Is child molestation too important a decision to be left up to the government? It should also be noted that abortions result in several potential health hazards for the mother.

Daniel J. Martin, clinical instructor at St. Louis University Medical School said, "The impact of abortion on the body of a woman who chooses abortion is great and always negative. I can think of no beneficial effect of a social abortion on a body."

Induce abortion is the premature, willful and violent penetration of a closed and safeguarded biological system. This unnatural medical procedure always exposes the mother to some risks. Unfortunately, the truth about these complications are often kept form the general public. The psychological aspects of abortion have devastated the lives of may women. Again, information about these potential damaging side-effects is normally kept from the general public.

MYTH 9:

Anti-abortionists do not really care what happens after the baby is born.

Former Clinton Administration Surgeon General Joceyln Elders has admonished conservatives to "get over their love affair with the fetus." This accusation is simply designed to keep the real issues from being examined.

It is the Christinan, conservative, and traditional movements that are building the programs that really help America’s children: schools that genuinely educate, adoption services, church children’s programs and, most importantly strong homes. These programs (most especially the home and family) are under attack from the new pagans. From home schools to church camps, the best interests of America’s children are being served by the same people who oppose abortion.

To many of the liberal crowd, the nation’s children form the test subjects for all kinds of social experiments. For Christian conservatives, proper care and training in child-rearing is one of mankind’s highest callings.

MYTH 10:

Only pro-choice candidates can be elected to public office in America.

This myth has been around for 20 years in America and still continues to be repeated no matter now many times it is refuted.

Ronald Reagan was declared by many Democrats, most of the news media, and some liberal Republicans to be "unelectable" because of his pro-life stance. Yet he won in 1980 by a wide margin and was re-elected by a 49-state landslide in 1984. The charge was repeated against George Bush in 1988 and yet he was elected by a landslide. Only after the economy in America dipped into a recession did American voters reject his Presidency.

Pennsylvania Democratic governor Robert Casey was declared unelectable because he was pro-life; yet, he was elected in 1986 and reelected in 1990.

Polling data after the 1992 Presidential election demonstrated that among the few voters who voted primarily on the abortion issue a slight majority voted pro-life.

Even more striking evidence from the 1994 election disproves this myth. In the Congressional elections of 1994, not one pro-life incumbent was defeated, and 43 new pro-life candidates were elected! Americans have elected far more pro-life governors in recent elections, as well.

The sad truth, however, is that the abortion issue rarely decides election outcomes in America. Economic issues, foreign policy, and law-and-order issues influence far more elections than abortion.

MYTH 11:

Pro-life people routinely use violence and terrorism to promote their cause.

Ever since shootings have taken place outside several abortion clinics, tragically killing abortion clinic doctors and staff, this myth has been widely circulated and used as the basis for several laws restricting the free-speech rights of pro-life advocates.

The truth is just the opposite. For 20 years thousands of pro-life demonstrators have been subjected to acts of violence and abuse for exercising their religious convictions and practicing free speech. The following are four examples of what pro-life Christians regularly experience (usually unreported by the media):

• One Missouri pro-abortion group called "Church Ladies for Choice" conducted a demonstration outside the Calvary Temple in St. Louis, banging drums and shouting obscenities, eventually assaulting police.

• A pro-abortion mob beset the Evangelical Free Church in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, blocking access to the chapel, shouting obscenities, and vandalizing cars in the parking lot.

• A Right to Life office in Gainesville, Florida, was fire-bombed by pro-abortion activists, with none of the publicity that attends assaults upon abortion clinics.

• Alan Ross, co-owner of an abortion clinic in Gaithersburg, Maryland, was convicted of assault upon a pro-life activist. This was the second such conviction for Ross in less than three months.

MYTH 12:

Anti-abortion protestors are anti-women.

As anyone who has ever been involved in promoting life over abortion can testify, the clear majority of protestors are women. In fact groups like the National Right to Life and Concerned Women for America have far more female members than does the liberal pro-abortion National Organization for Women. Finally, half of the babies these concerned Christians are trying to save are females.

Dr. Phil Stringer is Executive Vice President of Landmark Baptist College, Haines City, Florida.