Compassion concerning abortion care requires medical accuracy |
When a family learns that a desperately wanted pregnancy is unlikely to result in a healthy child, there are no easy answers.
In those moments, an obstetrician's responsibility is not to tell a family what it should feel or which decision it should make. Our responsibility is to provide accurate medical information, compassionate counseling and the full range of medically reasonable options so patients can make informed decisions consistent with their values.
That is why I was troubled by several medical claims in Dr. Sharai Amaya's recent opinion piece in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Her compassion for families facing devastating fetal diagnoses is understandable. But compassion should never come at the expense of medical accuracy.
Dr. Amaya argues that abortion is "far more dangerous" for women physically and emotionally than continuing a pregnancy, particularly in the second trimester. That is an extraordinarily broad claim, and current evidence does not support it.
Second-trimester abortion is not risk-free. Neither are pregnancy and childbirth. Risks vary with gestational age, a patient's medical history, the procedure performed and the circumstances of the pregnancy.
The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine concluded that legal abortion is safe and effective, with serious complications exceedingly uncommon.
One peer-reviewed U.S. comparison found a mortality rate of 0.6 deaths per 100,000 legal abortions compared with 8.8........