Continuing pregnancy safer than abortion

Doctors warn UN that killing babies in utero harms mothers

A group of students from the College of Notre Dame of Maryland look over some of the UN proposals shortly before leaving campus for New York to attend a conference of the UN Commission on the Status of Women. CNS photo / Chaz Muth.

Medical experts before the United Nations argued that abortion is not medically necessary to promote women's health and can actually harm women instead. Catholic News Agency reports:

"Real medical care decreases maternal mortality; abortion does not decrease maternal mortality," Dr. Donna J. Harrison told CNA on March 6.

The doctors challenged assumptions that the expansion of health care and women's rights demands the expansion of abortion. They stressed that pregnancies, even those considered to be high-risk, do not necessitate conflict between the needs of the mother and those of the child. Instead, they explained, innovative solutions treating the whole person and the whole of society lead to increased health for all involved.

Dr. Eoghan de Faoite, a member of the board of the Committee on Excellence in Maternal Healthcare in Ireland, criticized the international attacks on Ireland's ban on abortion. He noted that the country has one of the lowest rates of maternal death in the developed world and has not experienced the "rise in mortality" seen in other Western countries that have legalized abortion.

For full story see The B.C. Catholic website.