Safe Abortion:

Safe Abortion is a relative term. Deaths and complications from unsafe abortion are mostly preventable. Procedures and techniques for early induced abortion are simple and abortion is argued to be one of the safest medical procedures when performed by trained health care providers with proper equipment, correct technique, and under sanitary conditions.

Of course, when women have access to safe services, their likelihood of dying as a result of an abortion performed with modern methods is relatively safe. In developing countries, the risk of death following complications of unsafe abortion procedures is several hundred times higher than that of an abortion performed professionally under safe conditions. Of course, in developing countries, this is likewise true of all other surgical procedures. Properly provided services avoid the often substantial costs of treating complications of unsafe procedures.

There is a common misconception, intentionally circulated in the United States, that the legal abortions of today are immensely safer than the illegal abortion of yesterday. In reality, more than 90 percent of the illegal abortions performed prior to its decriminalization were already performed by doctors. When abortion was illegal, and performed by someone other than a doctor, the abortionist had to be very careful to avoid infection, laceration, and puncturing the uterus, since a visit to the emergency room was an invitation for a police investigation.

Unfortunately, the same is not true today. Abortionists today, are free to operate on an assembly-line basis. The faster they work, the more money they make. And when women get hurt — well, that's just the risk that goes with any surgery.

It must be remembered, that induced abortion is the premature, willful, and violent penetration of a closed and safeguarded system — a system in which nearly every cell, tissue and organ of a woman's reproductive system has been specially transformed and activated to carry out the function of sustaining and nourishing a developing child. Not surprisingly, any violation of the integrity of that system can lead to serious complications. Physical problems resulting from an unnaturally induced abortion can range from hemorrhage and infection to sterility and even death, while psychological effects range from depression and mental trauma to divorce and even suicide.