Telford on Goodger on Abortion

Re Ms Kav Goodger's letter in Salient(issue 8). I find no real answers to my objections to WONAC's submission in the Royal Commission on Contraception. Sterilisation and Abortion. (1 ) The submission presumes that legalising abortion will stop 'backstreet abortions', (2) It ignores the serious dangers to a woman's health from induced abortion, (3) It fails to have any regard to the right of the unborn child to lire.

Ms Goodger states 'Of the countries listed by Telford....none allow abortion on request". This is false. "In some countries, such as Japan and the Eastern Communist countries, the social grounds have been so broadly interpreted that...for all practical purposes abortion is practised at the request of the woman"(1) [Yet illegal abortion Still continues there].

In the Eastern bloc countries, abortion is considered a right of the woman to decide the outcome of her pregnancy. Only in two countries, Bulgaria and Rumania, has the law been changed to restrict abortion on demand.

What Ms Goodger fails to state is that Bulgaria has changed its law as increasing evidence suggests the danger of abortion to a woman's health and subsequent child bearing.

Some of the other countries are realising the dangers also. So in Hungary, a woman seeking an abortion is reminded of the dangers of sterility and subsequent abnormal pregnancy. But the ultimate decision remains herss.

This reminder seems a restriction to Ms Goodger. To me, it seems common sense and compassion and concern for the health of the woman - sentiments noticeable by their absence from the WONAAC submission.

Ms Goodger to show the safety of abortion quotes from Guttmacher's study of 'Liberalised Abortion in New York'. Yet in the same state, the Medical Society of New York State warned its members in 1970 that 'abortions done after the 12th week of pregnancy are fraught with tremendous dangers"(2). "In the majority of countries, including New York State, a woman is more likely to die from legal abortion than she is if she were to carry the pregnancy to term" (31).

WONAAC, to support their claim that abortion is safer than childbirth, speak only of mortality rates. That is only half the truth. They consistently ignore the complications from induced abortion which include sterility, significant haemorrhage, pelvic infection, perforation of the uterus.

Dismissing, as Ms Goodger does, the 'Wynn Report' as "infamous" and "highly selective" is only name-calling and convinces on one. It matters little who the report was financed by, the facts it contains are what matters.

It was researched by two experienced medical researchers from 75 medical papers from many countries. Their conclusion and that of other researchers (eg Gardiner The Abortion Dilemma' "One thing is abundantly clear and that is the claim that the procedure is without risk is quite unfounded, at whatever stage the operation be performed" p 220) is that abortion is a risky and often dangerous procedure "Despite new techniques, abortion carries a very real short-term and long-term morbidity, not least sub fertility" (4).

The rights of the unborn have been established for centuries. One of the oldest law codes - the Assyrian of 1500 BC - prohibits abortion.

The legal protection of fetal life represents a 700 year old tradition in English common-law. WONAAC dismisses the laws progressive recognition of the rights and [unclear: humunity] of the unborn child as chauvinism. Many (until now) have called it the progress of civilisation. The Anglo-American law of property recognises the unburn as a person with rights from 1795 (Doe v Clark). The 1798 case Thellusson v Woodford confirmed that unborn children are entitled to all the privileges of other persons (5).

Dismissing the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights as only the decision of "a collection of representatives of governments" is hardly a considered judgement on what has become a landmark in international understanding and agreement.

It has renewed at the International Human Rights Conference, in Teheran, in May 1968.

It embodies the judgement of the world's civilized nations on the status of the unborn - and it is unanimous in declaring the rights of the unborn child.

WONAAC considers (he foetus is "a potential human being, a potential person" whatever that may mean.

They are entitled to their opinion as I am to mine. However what both sides must take into account is the scientific evidence about the humanity of the foetus. In no way does it support WONAAC's opinion.

'The abundance or scientific evidence for the living continuum should obviate the need of an explicit defence of the human status of the embryo. Science simply presents the fact that human life begins with fertilisation and contues until death" (6).

A separate human being - distinct from the mother exists at conception. The child has a different chromosomal makeup, (46 chromosomes) and belongs to the human species. The scientist and biologist find no change of nature - from non-human (or 'potential human') to human. The process

When the heart of the embry o beings to beat al 18 days after Conception, could WONAAC please tell me what kind of heart is beating - a non-human one? When at 30 days, the child has a brain, eyes, ears, mouth, kidney, liver what species do they belong to?.

Ms Goodger considers I am muddled in my thinking "all or most woman seeking abortion would really rather have a child". It is she who has misunderstood my letter. My concern is that all society is presently hoping to offer women is an abortion, as a solution to her problem associated with pregnancy.

E.P. McCormick in her study 'Attitudess to Abortion'(7) says 'The one overriding and recurrent theme throughout the interviews was the conviction expressed by many of the women that abortion was the only way out of their dilemna'.

The solution to the problem associated with pregnancy is more support from society, not the destruction of a child.