STEEPED IN A MISTY MORN OF MUSINGS...

If you are bothered by the following scenario, help prevent unwanted pregnancies before they happen. Proper contraceptive measures are critical, among other means.

Bottom line: there needs to be more efficient ways to prevent an unwanted pregnancy in the first place.

The Negative Consequences of Abortion if Made Illegal:

[NOTE: as expressed by a male physician]

A legal abortion connotes a procedure performed by a licensed medical professional in a clean, sterile environment, with clean, sterile tools. But what about illegal abortions?

Those who push for more restrictions on abortion access - really, those who push for abortion to be made illegal - seem unwilling to acknowledge the bona fide disastrous alternatives. Many who are anti-choice have no memories of what life was like for woman before Roe v. Wade (1973), nor do they ever truly want to concede the ghastly truth. We know abortion rates stay fairly steady, regardless of legality. What options would exist, then, for those without the money or connections to a discrete physician should abortion one day be made illegal? To answer these questions, retired physician Waldo L. Fielding, M.D. wrote an article for publication in 2008; in it, he described what he saw while working as a gynecologist in New York City from 1948 to 1958. Here are his words:

The familiar symbol of illegal abortion is the infamous “coat hanger” — in other words, the ascribed symbol. Nonetheless, in no certain terms, is this device a myth. In my years in New York, several women arrived with a wire hanger still in place. Whoever put it in — perhaps the patient herself — found it ensnared in the cervix and could not remove it.

Almost any implement you can imagine had been, and was, used to start an abortion — darning needles, crochet hooks, cut-glass salt shakers, soda bottles, the latter sometimes intact, yet sometimes with the top broken off.

Another method that I did not encounter personally, but heard about from colleagues in other hospitals, was a soap solution forced through the cervical canal with a syringe. This could cause almost immediate death if a bubble in the solution entered a woman's blood vessel and was transported to the heart as an air embolus.

The worst case I saw, and one I hope no one else will ever have to face, was that of a nurse who was admitted with what looked like a partly delivered umbilical cord. Yet as soon as we examined her, we realized that what we thought was the cord was, in fact, part of her own intestine, which had been 'hooked' and torn by whatever implement had been used in the abortion. It took six hours of surgery to remove her infected uterus and ovaries and repair the part of the bowel that was still functional and had not undergone necrosis.

A case report from 1911 describes a self-induced abortion using a knitting needle.

"In the afternoon, the day before her admission, she had attempted to pass into the uterus a knitting needle made from bone material…During the attempt, the needle broke off short, leaving about half of it inside her body…For the next four days the woman's temperature gradually rose, until on the fifth day after admission it was 102.2 F, her pulse rate 100. On the evening of this day, uterine hemorrhage occurred…and at 6:30 next morning the patient aborted a fetus some 4 in. in length…The needle had just missed the right border of the rectum, the wall of the sigmoid bowel being slightly torn superficially…"

A case study from 1972 goes into greater detail about the use of a soap solution.

A case report from 1964 describes a woman’s attempt to self-abort with turpentine.

Believing herself to be pregnant she had, on the afternoon preceding admission, injected into her uterus the contents of a medical syringe filled with turpentine and water. Immediately thereafter, she experienced a sharp burning sensation which “went all through me up to my chest.” This was followed by a convulsive seizure. Two hours later she began to have paroxysms of coughing productive of a bloody sputum.

A case history from 1961 describes two women’s attempts to self-abort with Lysol. One woman survived. The other did not.

The second patient was a 26-year-old French Canadian woman, married, but separated from her husband. She was…3 ½ months pregnant. She had used a vaginal douche of concentrated Lysol solution 25 hours before admission…On examination there was florid erythema of the thighs and vulva. Pieces of placental tissue were passed, but the abortion remained incomplete. The day after admission renal shut-down ensued…A full-blown picture of severe nephrosis [kidney disease] developed rapidly in this case…The patient’s condition consequently deteriorated rapidly and she died on the sixth day in acute pulmonary edema [abnormal fluid in the lungs].

Those who got terminations done by others didn’t fare much better (PDF). (1964)

…this 21-year-old single girl…went to an abortionist who inserted a catheter and wire into her cervix. The wire was removed after four days when chills, fever, crampy lower abdominal pain, nausea, and vomiting developed. Symptoms persisted until she came to the emergency ward with a temperature of 103 F (39.4 C) and a shaking chill…Her abdomen was rigid, with diffuse tenderness and complete absence of bowel sounds. There was tenderness, also, on pelvic and rectal palpation, the uterus was enlarged with necrotic [dead] tissue extruding from the cervix…She was discharged to her home after 17 days, only to return 10 days later with a temperature of 105 F (40.6 C)…Two days later…an exploratory laporotomy was done…and total hysterectomy [removal of the uterus]… She became…sterile at the age of only 21.

…this 25-year-old married woman was given a soap-and-bleach douche by an abortionist. Following the douche, fever and chills developed with vaginal bleeding and crampy lower abdominal pain. On admission she had a temperature of 103 F (39.4 C), which rose to 106 F (41.4 C)…an emergency hysterectomy was done, following which she had cardiac arrest. She was resuscitated, but arrested a second time, and this time did not respond to medical resuscitation.

Some women attempted to induce miscarriage by drinking poisons made from either aloe, ergot of rye, or savin-oil; teas made from tansy, pennyroyal, or rue, as well as deadly nightshade; high doses of vitamin C, and other natural “remedies.”

Dr. Garson Romalis, who survived two attempts on his life, gave a speech in 2008 in which he described what he saw while in medical school.

"The first time I started to think about abortion was in 1960, when I was in my second year of medical school. I was assigned the case of a young woman who had died of a septic abortion. She had aborted herself using slippery elm bark…The young woman in our case developed an overwhelming infection. At autopsy confirmed she had multiple abscesses throughout her body, in her brain, lungs, liver and abdomen".

I have never forgotten that case.

…

I will never forget the 17-year-old girl lying on a stretcher with 6 feet of small bowel protruding from her vagina either. She actually survived.

I will never forget the jaundiced woman in irreversible liver and kidney failure, in septic shock, with very severe anemia, whose life we were NOT able to save.

Some women were also told that they could induce miscarriage by undergoing physical stress, such as vigorous exercise, lifting heavy objects, jumping off tables, belly-flopping onto a hard surface, receiving punches, kicks or other blows to their stomachs, or throwing themselves down a flight of stairs.

None of these methods were guaranteed to work. Contrariwise, women would be left injured, ill, sterile, or dead. Is all of this hard for you to read? It should be. That was the reality of pre-Roe America, and for some, it is still their reality. Those who can’t afford abortions, can’t get to clinics, or can’t tell anyone about their situation, turn to these methods, and worse. In countries where abortion is still illegal, this is all that people are offered. You need to understand that not all woman are allowed to have any voice at all as to whether they engage in sexual intercourse...and, as a result, pregnancy often follows. Many are faced with bringing a child into abject poverty... only to watch them suffer or perhaps die. Is this considered the lesser of two evils, or genuinely humane?

Lysol, carbonic acid, coat hangers, stairs, and fists are not surgical instruments. Back alleys, grimy kitchens, and squalid motel rooms are not operating rooms.

Regardless of your opinion on abortion, this is what happens when abortion is no longer available. History categorically proves this.

Keeping abortion legal is the only moral option.