Abortion rights were back in the news Friday, even as President Barack
Obama and Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney stepped up their
efforts to win the women’s vote.
Rep. Joe Walsh (R-Ill.), who is facing a tough race to retain his seat
in Congress, told reporters Thursday that he was opposed to abortion under any
circumstances — and that thanks to medical progress, “you can’t find one
instance” when it might be necessary to perform an abortion to protect a
woman’s health. “There’s no such exception as life of the mother,” Walsh said,
according to this report from Bloomberg News. “And as far as health of the mother, same
thing, with advances in science and technology. Health of the mother has become
a tool for abortions any time, under any reason.”
Within hours, women’s heath advocates — and physicians — attacked his
remarks. “Joe Walsh’s ignorance about women’s health is alarming,” said Dawn
Laguens, executive vice president of Planned Parenthood Action Fund, the
advocacy arm of Planned Parenthood, in a statement.
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) fired its
own salvo, calling the congressman’s comments “inaccurate” in a widely
distributed response. “Abortions are necessary in a number of circumstances to
save the life of a woman or to preserve her health,” the doctors’ organization
said. The group reported that more than 600 women die every year from pregnancy
and childbirth-related causes and that “many more would die each year if they
did not have access to abortion.”
Dr. David Grimes, a clinical professor in obstetrics and gynecology at
the University of North Carolina School of Medicine in Chapel Hill who has
provided abortions for four decades and formerly led a department that studied
abortion safety at the U.S. Centres for Disease Control and Prevention,
described some potentially life-threatening circumstances.
In his practice, he said, he’s often cared for women who are newly
diagnosed with breast cancer or leukemia whose oncologists refuse to administer
treatment until the pregnancy is over. Type 1 diabetes can be severely
aggravated by pregnancy, and an abortion may be necessary to save a patient’s
eyes or kidney function. And in some severe cases of pre-eclampsia, the liver
can begin to die — and the only treatment is ending the pregnancy. “The
suggestion from someone who is not medically trained that there are no
indications it might be appropriate is insulting, and demeaning to women,” he
said. “I would not tell a legislator how to craft a bill. By the same
token, I don’t want him to tell me how to do my job.”
ACOG’s statement echoed that sentiment. “[Our] message to politicians is
unequivocal: Get out of our exam rooms,” it said. The group pointed
readers to an article published earlier in the week in the New England Journal of
Medicine, in which leaders of ACOG and other medical organizations urged
legislators to stop intervening in decisions made by patients and their
doctors.
LA Times
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