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… 90% of all illegal abortions are presently being done by physicians …. [A]bortion, whether therapeutic or illegal, is in the main no longer dangerous, because it is being done well by physicians.

If Planned Parenthood, the largest provider of abortions in the US, says that the vast majority of unlawful abortions were being performed "well" and by licensed physicians in the 1960s, we can be certain that the vast majority will again be performed by licensed physicians if abortion is outlawed at some future time. The myth of the "back-alley butcher" is little more than a convenient rhetorical devise with which radical feminists seek to induce hysteria in a naïve electorate.

Bernard Nathanson, MD, an abortion expert and an obstetrician-gynecologist who once presided over the largest abortion clinic in the world, said the following in his book Aborting America, Doubleday, 1979:

The practice of abortion was revolutionized at virtually the same moment that the laws were revolutionized, through the widespread introduction of suction curettage in 1970. (Even before this, antibiotics and other advances had already dramatically lowered the abortion death rate.) Instead of scraping the soft wall of the pregnant uterus with a sharp instrument, the operator vacuums it out with a plastic suction curette. Though it is preferable that this be done by a licensed physician, one can expect that if abortion is ever driven underground again, even non-physicians will be able to perform this procedure with remarkable safety…. Even without a suction machine, a simple combination of catheter and syringe can produce enough suction to carry out a safe early abortion.

As for the self-induced abortion, by thrusting a coathanger or other dangerous object into the womb, this will also be a thing of the past.

Nathanson goes on to discuss the advent of chemical abortifacients which many believe will allow women to unlawfully self-abort with a degree of safety at least comparable to current, lawful, physician-performed suction abortion. Time magazine, June 14, 1993 featured a cover story entitled "The Pill That Changes Everything, A new, simpler way to use RU 486 makes abortion a truly personal and private choice …." The article concludes that chemical abortifacients "… could make abortion far more difficult to regulate. And eventually it could mean that abortions will become simpler, safer and more accessible not only throughout the US but also around the world."

The Los Angeles Times, August 14, 2000, featured a story headlined "The Abortion Pill: Finally at Hand? Describing various chemical abortifacient drugs the paper reported the following:

There is research, still inconclusive, that suggests a woman might be able to self-administer misoprostrol at home at the direction of her doctor ….

Meanwhile, researchers report that a black market has developed for one of the abortion medications. Misoprostol, a drug sometimes called 'the star pill' for its hexagonal shape, is widely used in Brazil where abortion is banned, researchers report. And a recent survey of 610 women, primarily Latinas, in New York City found that 5% admitted having used 'the star pill' for abortion. More than a third of the women surveyed said they knew about the method.

The July 11, 1999 issue of the New York Times Sunday magazine carried an article headlined "The Little White Bombshell." It quoted Eric Schaff at the University of Rochester, who has supervised clinical trials for Mifepristone. The researcher says he is convinced "… the drug is safe and that administering it is a simple procedure that midwives or nurse-practitioners could do." The Journal of the American Medical Women's Association (2000;55: 186-188) contains a commentary by Amy E. Pollack, MD and Rachael Pine, JD entitled "Opening a Door to Safe Abortion: International Perspectives on Medical Abortifacient Use." The abstract states that "In some countries where safe abortion is neither accessible nor legal, even unsupervised, off-protocol use of misoprostol can provide women with a means to safely terminate pregnancy."

The assertion that outlawing convenience abortion will herald a "return to the days of coathangers and perforated uteri" is cynical nonsense. The supposed risk to women is the most dishonest argument yet advanced in opposition to outlawing abortion. When elective abortion is again against the law, pro-lifers will, of course, seek to restrict traffic in illicit abortifacients. But safe, accessible, abortion-inducing chemicals will be as difficult to regulate then as marijuana is today.

CHANGING THE SUBJECT

The pictures of The Genocide Awareness Project (GAP) are sometimes condemned for supposedly creating an atmosphere conducive to the commission of anti-abortion violence. This fiction persists despite the widely known fact that GAP' s sponsor, The Center For Bio-Ethical Reform (CBR), condemns violence against abortion providers -- and against the babies killed by abortion providers.

Dr. Martin Luther King was often castigated by racists who unjustly blamed him for the violent unrest which sometimes followed his peaceful but confrontational demonstrations. Mayor Richard Daley of Chicago argued that if Dr. King would stop exposing racial injustice, black people would be less likely participate in the riots which left many dead and injured (The Civil Rights Movement, Steven Kasher, Abbeville Press, 1996). In his "Letter From The Birmingham Jail," supra, Dr. King rebutted this dishonest attempt to change the subject:

In your statement you asserted that our actions, though peaceful, must be condemned because they precipitate violence .... [I]t is immoral to urge an individual to withdraw his efforts to gain ... basic constitutional rights because the quest precipitates violence .... Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and establish such a creative tension that a community ... is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that is can no longer be ignored.

In a speech delivered just months before he would be murdered, he restated the imperative of confronting a complacent culture:

... [U]ntil our problem is solved, America may have many, many days, but they will be full of trouble. There will be no rest, there will be no tranquillity in this country until the nation comes to terms with our problem.

Neither will there be tranquillity until the nation comes to terms with the "problem" of abortion.