Pro-choice?
With any medical procedure, patients need to be informed of any possible risks.
But it seems that some “pro-choice” advocates are not in favour of a woman being fully informed of the risks of having an abortion or of a woman being told about the stage of development of her unborn child or showing her an ultrasound of her unborn child. They are absolutely opposed to a woman being shown an ultrasound. Many women change their mind after seeing an ultrasound of the child in their womb which means fewer abortions for abortion clinics. If women are not fully informed of the risks and consequences of abortion, then one cannot speak of informed consent.
Not informing women about the child in their womb and the risks of abortion seems to be more of a pro-abortion attitude than a so called pro-choice one. How many women are informed of the risks of premature birth in subsequent pregnancies after an abortion? How many are told of the potential psychological effects of abortion? How many are informed about the medical and scientific evidence of an increased risk for the later development of breast cancer following an induced abortion ?
As Lorne Gunter commented in the National Post, “I am astounded by the lengths so-called pro-choicers will go to ensure women have abortions. I don’t mean the lengths the pro-choice movement will go to ensure that safe, legal, clinical abortions are available to women who decide to have them, I mean the legal and political gymnastics pro-choice activists will perform to ensure women follow through on their decision to have an abortion.”
In an Angus Reid Strategies poll in 2008, 95% of Canadians said they want women to be told about the potential physical and psychological effects of abortion.
If abortion advocates don’t acknowledge the facts and risks that might cause a pregnant woman to change her mind about having an abortion, is it really a ‘choice’ at all? If “pro-choicers” are really what they say they are, why would they be unhappy if a woman changed her mind and decided not to have an abortion? Isn’t that a woman’s right?
