About a week ago, the South Dakota Campaign for UnHealthy Families sent out another piece of propaganda to scare otherwise reasonable people out of voting for Initiated Measure 11.
This one featured Dr. Marvin Buehner of Rapid City and a list of fetal anomalies that can occur during a pregnancy.
Dr. Ann Church of Spearfish, however, corrects this scare tactic with a letter to the Argus Leader yesterday:
These lethal anomalies do not present a threat to the mother's health. Recommending abortion in these situations only serves to reinforce the notion that the families involved should be ashamed and should get rid of the fetus as soon as possible. This ultimately leads to abnormal grief.
Medical studies show that patients who carried their babies to term had normal grief and had fewer complications compared to those who aborted their babies. Families that carry their babies to term know that their time to bond and love their babies largely is limited to the in utero period. Furthermore, many couples choose tissue and organ donation, adding value to their child's short life.
As she concludes, she reminds readers that Initiated Measure 11 is to stop elective abortions used as birth control, and chides Dr. Buehner for trying to confuse the issue.
Dr. Buehner is a fine doctor. It's a pity he's on the wrong side of this issue. But he is definitely on the wrong side, here.
Initiated Measure 11 provides the exceptions for rape, incest, the health of the mother and the life of the mother that a majority of South Dakotans asked for in 2006. It provides these exceptions while preventing abuse of the exceptions, and in doing so, should, according to the latest statistics from the South Dakota Department of Health, save 98.1% of the babies currently being killed in South Dakota each year.
Is that too much to ask? Must we continue abortion as birth control with the killing unabated?
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