Catholic Medical Quarterly

The Journal of the Catholic Medical Association (UK)

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Catholic Medical Quarterly Volume 71(3) August 2021

Editorial

Are ‘pro-choice’ groups really pro-choice?

Antonia Tully

This is a question which pro-lifers often find themselves asking and never more so than when it comes to issue of abortion pill reversal.

The answer is, of course, no. ‘Pro-choice’ groups are not interested in choice, they are only interested in abortion. So when a woman has taken the first abortion pill and changes her mind, as far as the so-called ‘pro-choice’ groups are concerned, she should not be able to choose to try to save her baby.

Pro-abortion propaganda peddles the fiction that women make calm, rational decisions to abort. Life for many women simply doesn’t work like that. Ambivalence about an abortion decision is common[1], and ambivalence is related to post-abortion distress[2,3,4]. Abortion decisions are not straightforward and it’s no wonder women regret their decision.

We are seeing more and more testimonies from women who feel betrayed by the abortion industry and express their regret. This is ‘Chloe’s’ post on MumsNet in January of this year: “I feel heart broken and empty every single day... I couldn’t lose my boyfriend so I chose to lose my baby instead and I’m regretting that decision more and more each day.... I can barely sleep, I cry almost every day, I feel empty, I’m full of regret, I imagine my life with my baby in it.”

Many women regret their abortion. And some women regret their abortion decision almost straight away, after taking the first abortion pill. So when word began to spread that there was a chance to halt the abortion process before it was too late, women turned to doctors who would help them with abortion pill reversal (APR).

Two Catholic doctors have been looking after women seeking APR in the UK. In most cases, initial calls from women were routed via the organisation Abortion Pill Rescue in the US, who put them in touch with the doctors over here.

One of the doctors, told the Daily Mail in April 2021: 'Since last April, 141 women have contacted the abortion pill rescue programme, of whom 90 started progesterone treatment to reverse the lethal effects of the first abortion pill, mifepris­tone. Of 73 who continued treatment, 38 have managed to hold on to their pregnancies – a success rate of around 50 per cent.

“So far, ten women have delivered healthy babies, while 28 are still pregnant.'”[5]

However, the medical establishment is not happy with this. Both doctors are being investigated for their Fitness to Practice by the General Medical Council. Currently, they can no longer help women to save their babies. The culture of death does not want women to have any other choice but abortion.

‘Pro-choice’ has long been a pernicious euphemism for ‘pro-abortion’. Pro-lifers are dubbed ‘anti-choice’. The reality, and the irony, is that pro-lifers are the ones offering real choice to women. But for too many women the evil words ‘pro-choice’ have already done the damage.

This is what ‘Victoria’ from Glasgow wrote in the Daily Mail in response to their article about abortion pill reversal: “I was pro-choice till I had an at home abortion and saw my baby in the toilet. Nothing can prepare you for that. I was given no counsel, no warning not to look. No knowledge of reversal. No offer of a burial for the remains. Just nothing, but instructions how to carry it out. It’s that simple - and it shouldn’t be. I’m not saying abortions should be banned, but educational support, and truth­ful information should be given to women. This has altered my life and I will never get over it. I should have been better informed. Better supported. I had no idea that a 12 week fetus looked like a baby.’[6]

This heartrending message exposes the slogan ‘pro-choice’ for what is really is: cheap and deceitful. It hides the brutal reality of abortion. ‘Victoria’ and countless others only find out that being ‘pro-choice’ is a cruel illusion once their baby is dead.

APR offers real choice to women who do not want to go ahead with their abortion. Abortion providers are livid that such a thing should even exist. This is what BPAS says: ‘So-called abortion reversal treatment is a tactic that anti-choice groups in the UK have adopted from their counterparts in the US’. [7] APR is not a ‘tactic’, it’s a genuine choice for women.

The abortion industry appears to regard progesterone treatment is a Pro-life plot when it comes to abortion reversal.

But it’s a genuine treatment when it comes to miscarriage prevention. In January of last year, the RCOG reported on ‘scientific and economic advantages’ of giving progesterone to women threatening miscarriage, claiming that 8,450 babies could be born every year. Progesterone treatment is a life-saving choice in cases of miscarriage, but is dismissed as a choice for women who have taken mifepristone.

At the time of writing, the doctors concerned are facing a fitness to practise hearing. So incensed are abortion providers, that Marie Stopes Reproduc­tive Choices UK has resorted to bullying a woman who was helped one of the doctors and she has become a witness at the GMC hearing. The Director of Marie Stopes called the woman out of the blue and tried to pressure her into speaking against Dr Kearney. In her witness statement to the GMC, she said that she found Dr Kearney “professional, kind and compassionate”and that she felt “Marie Stopes are to blame for what has happened to me and I do not wish to be used by them in some sort of complaint against Dr A”.

Here then is the pro-choice lobby in action; pressuring a vulnerable woman to vilify the only person who gave her a real choice in her crisis; a loving, pro-life doctor. They simply will not tolerate pregnant women in a crisis having any option but abortion. This is not choice it is tyranny.

Antonia Tully is Director of Campaigns for the  Society for the Protection of Unborn Children.