by Paul Wilson
Population Research Institute
Through the grace of God, PRI has saved the life of an unborn child in Peru who was slated to be aborted for so-called “therapeutic” reasons.
Doctors in a Peruvian hospital had decided to give a woman with breast cancer an abortion, claiming that the abortion was necessary to save her life. In fact, they were primarily worried that their plans to put the woman on chemotherapy would cause the child to be born with birth defects. Rather than undertake alternative treatment, they decided to simply do away with the child.
Problem solved, right? Wrong. Peru’s Therapeutic Abortion Protocol was never intended to be used to justify an abortion where the mother’s life was not in immediate danger.
When PRI heard about the doctors’ deadly plans, we quickly intervened.
Carlos Polo, the president of PRI in Latin America, first called the head of the cancer department who wanted the abortion performed, and told him that this would be a violation of the law. When the doctor balked, we upped the ante. Using our connections in the Peruvian legal system and government, we brought in an attorney and a legislator to talk to the doctor. These managed to persuade the unwilling oncologist and his colleagues to call off the abortion by threatening them with criminal prosecution.
The abortion that the doctors were originally bent upon was never medically necessary. The mother is currently receiving alternate treatment for her cancer in the form of chemotherapy that does not harm her unborn child. Mother and child are doing well.
Here we have a perfect example of how the pro-abortion movement uses Therapeutic Abortion Protocols to push for ever more abortions. In this case, it was used as an excuse to pressure parents into agreeing to an abortion that was neither medically necessary nor legally permitted. Worldwide, the “health of the mother” exception to many pro-life laws is one of the principal justifications for executing unborn children. It becomes in effect, a license to kill.
Until recently, Peruvian doctors would never have dared to propose performing an abortion under these or any other circumstances. The right to life was protected from conception by the Peruvian constitution.
But the “therapeutic abortion protocol” adopted in Peru this past June has blurred the lines. Doctors are now allowed to perform abortions when “it is the only means to save the mother’s life or to prevent serious and permanent damage to the mother’s health.”
Some doctors are taking this exception to be the new rule, and are performing so-called “therapeutic abortions” under a wider and wider array of circumstances. Unless this trend is stopped, abortion on demand is just around the corner.
One of the dirtiest tricks in the pro-abortion arsenal is their penchant for exploiting the urgent need to protect the lives and health of mothers by using this to justify aborting their unborn children. First, laws and regulations instituting abortion for reasons of health are established. Then, exceptions permitting abortion to ensure “the health of the mother” are expanded in practice until they become the norm, and abortion on demand becomes the order of the day.
Some call this health care. We call it homicide. And we intend to stop it whenever and wherever we can.
The pro-life Population Research Institute is dedicated to ending human rights abuses committed in the name of "family planning," and to ending counter-productive social and economic paradigms premised on the myth of "overpopulation." Find us at pop.org.
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