Expert: Pat G - 8/4/2011

Question
QUESTION: what is the earlirst a medical termination procedure can occur? are there any UK guidelines and who sets them and where can they be sourced? are there any complications/problems if the procedure takes place before 5 weeks-before the foetal heart beat is detectable?
I am a volunteer pregnancy advisor and this question has come to light at the termination clinic i work from.thank you for taking the time to read this, regards julie

ANSWER: Hello, julie,

First, I want to commend you for wanting to learn more so that women you help are not endangered. I want to express my appreciation for your question.

That said, please be aware that the manufacturer of Cytotec says a pregnant woman should never take it. Ever. (Cytotec is a stomach ulcer medication. Because of the harm that it can cause a pregnant woman, and the fact it is given off label, it is really unethical to provide it to a pregnant woman.) The reason is because it can kill her. There are two ways Cytotec can kill. The first is that it can cause her to bleed to death. Mifeprex also can cause a woman to bleed to death. There are roughly 10,000 women in India who die each year from abortion. Most abortions are done by women on themselves. They buy a kit over the counter that contains the medications. I get quite a few questions from women who are bleeding heavily after a pill abortion, and this can go on for weeks. It is likely some of the women who write me don't survive. Many women live in rural areas where they cannot get medical care at all, and if they could, many of them cannot afford it. I realize this is not the case in the UK, but we are aware women are also dying in the United States from these causes.

The second way Cytotec can kill is by causing toxic shock syndrome. If a woman has the bacterium Clostridium sordellii in her body, she is at risk. There are other organisms that can cause toxic shock syndrome, but this is the usual cause. Putting Cytotec in the vagina makes a woman especially vulnerable, although putting in the mouth can also cause toxic shock syndrome. In the case of this problem, because the immune response is drastically decreased by Cytotec, her body doesn't fight back when the infection starts to gain a foothold. Her body won't produce a fever. It makes absolutely no attempt to fight back in any other way. Once symptoms develop (the symptoms of dying), it is very unlikely that even the most aggressive life-saving measures will save her life. In fact, I don't know of any woman who has survived once she has reached that stage.

This, to my mind, makes the question of when is the earliest a woman should be given these poisons pretty much a silly question.

Mifeprex causes the death of the child because it cuts the supply of progesterone from the mother. For this reason, it won't have an effect prior to implantation. Once the baby starts to make his or her own progesterone, it also will be ineffective. The window during which it will work at all is very narrow. If only Cytotec is used, the woman may not necessarily have an abortion. Instead, there may be birth defects. The major ones are microcephaly (very small head), which causes extreme mental retardation, foreshortened limbs, and inability to use facial muscles (the child cannot smile).

In addition to this, pill abortions (like all abortions) make a woman more likely to get triple negative breast cancer. This is the most deadly form, killing 1/4 of its victims, and usually strikes before a woman is 40, and can even strike when the woman is in her 20's. If it is a first pregnancy and there is a history of breast cancer among close relatives, getting breast cancer is a virtual certainty. This comes from information provided by Dr. Janet Daling, who favors legal abortion. Her sister died of breast cancer. In addition to this, any abortion will make a woman much more prone to develop an auto-immune disease, such as lupus or rheumatoid arthritis. There are many different auto-immune diseases. The reason why this happens is because it heightens the woman's immune response because the baby leaves stem cells behind. All babies give off stem cells that enter the mother's body, and they go to various parts of the woman's body and stay there, in locations such as the brain and the breasts. The number given off is moderate unless the pregnancy ends in some way. Stem cells in moderation around the breasts actually help a woman's breasts resist breast cancer. Because abortion ends the pregnancy, massive numbers of stem cells are released. The protective mechanism that keeps the mother's body from rejecting the baby because he or she is foreign tissue, offers no protection against this massive onslaught.

Pill abortions have other drawbacks. It takes several days, and a woman will experience cramping. This can be so severe that it can actually rupture a woman's uterus. It is not possible to reduce the severity of these once they start. Essentially, a woman has to go through labor. She may see her baby, and this can cause extreme emotional trauma. If she develops a complication, she is on her own.

It is also well known that a woman often does have severe emotional repercussions. In large scale studies, it has been shown that having an abortion increases a woman's chance of dying a violent death in the year following abortion by 3 1/2 times. The risk of committing suicide is 6 times greater. A woman can also be careless and can die by accident, or she can abuse alcohol or drugs, which is sometimes fatal. Some are the victims of homicide. A woman can also develop sleep and eating disorders, or turn to self-abuse. I have personally experienced the nightmares some women have, and I wouldn't wish them off on my worst enemy. Because a woman is more likely to see her baby after a pill abortion, these risks would be heightened. And after a surgical abortion, some women develop an aversion to vacuum cleaners, because they dredge up horrible memories.

I don't recommend women get pill abortions because it is too dangerous, and I won't help anyone else or encourage them to do it, either.

I can also talk about the risks of surgical abortion. Please let me know if you would like this information. This is important because a surgical abortion can cause harm to a woman's future children, including miscarriage, tubal pregnancy, and developing some severe birth defects. At present, the consequences of pill abortion on future children is unknown.

There has been a pretty consistent systematic cover-up of the horrible consequences of abortion, and the prevalence of them. It often rises to the level of fraud. When anyone agrees to provide an abortion to a woman, he has the duty of obtaining informed consent. If all of these risks are not explained to the woman, then informed consent is not obtained.

Since I am not in the UK, I can't tell you what kind of governmental guidelines there might be, or where you can find them. In fact, I would say that any government that doesn't protect women from abortionists is being derelict in its duty. I hope you will realize that a woman deserves better than abortion. If she is guided to a choice she can live with, these guidelines will be irrelevant. I urge you to find out as much as you can about all of these problems. Because you care about women, I urge you to find a better way to help them. The industry you are involved in is not only bad for women, but it is bad for workers. It will also take its toll on you. Sooner or later, a woman will die or be severely injured on your watch as well. There is a great need for people who are willing to help women find a better answer. I hope you will seriously consider dedicating your life to giving women real help. Please.

I welcome further discussion. I will be praying for you. Please take care.

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: thankyou for your info. I am a christian volunteer working for a wider charity organisation Care Confidential. We were invited to the clinic at a goverment NHS hospital because due to cuts there was no counsellor. We are there for women to explore their options in a non directive way. our hope is that we see those who are unsure and will avoid a wrong termination desision.

This issue i asked about has cropped up because the scanner has been told by her line management that a medical termination can be offer where no heart beat is dtected(the current condition is the presence of a heart beat at 5 weeks) they say as long as the yokl sac is detected-therefore terminations casn occur at 3-4 weeks. We are very concerned because women may be having unnesesary abortions and having to deal with the physical and emotion repercussions unnesesarrily. This is a cost saving measure because if women are too early they are currently given another appointment. The management are trying to avoid this second appointment so i wanted info to challenge this.

thankyou for the info you provided- i did find your comments, though well meaning, rather judgemental. I know i am making a difference for the women i see,they get out of the slip stream of the termination process to consider other options and see thing from a different perspective. if they choose to terminate, we offer a post abortion counselling service.Our heart is to love not judge or impose our values. We pray for all the women we see. If you have any other info that may help the initial enquiry i would be grateful, regards julie

Answer
Hello, julie,

I don't have a lot of time at the moment, as it turns out, but I can write more later, and I need to mention some things. I believe in being straightforward. There's no sense in not doing this, because the abortion decision is a life-altering decision. Abortion is forever. Any time you counsel a woman who is considering abortion, you are literally taking her life into your hands. How you influence her could have eternal ramifications.

I got one message here some months back from a woman who was clearly suicidal. She had had an abortion. Unfortunately, I was unaware of her message for about six hours. When I did receive it, I wrote her a message into which I poured all my love, and hoped to point her toward reconciliation with God instead. She had been going around the internet desperately looking for someone who would reach out to her. Unfortunately, she never read my message. I will never forget her, and I strongly suspect that I was her only hope, and I failed her. Don't think for one moment this doesn't weigh heavily on my spirit. If only I had had the opportunity to talk to her BEFORE she had an abortion! You have that opportunity.

To begin with, I know from experience there is NO WAY I could POSSIBLY be anywhere nearly as judgmental as a woman who has an abortion and then regrets it. The woman I mentioned wasn't the only one. I have met many, many women, some of them suicidal. It's not a thing to trifle with. Since you are a Christian, I will mention that one of the things abortion does to many women is alienates a woman from God. Many women think they cannot ask God for forgiveness because what they did is far too heinous. Many women cannot forgive themselves. That would be the hardest thing in the world to do, and I am not sure I could do it if I were in a position where I know I deliberately and knowingly had an abortion. An unborn child is made in the image of God. Psalm 139. We instinctively know this, at least that this is our child, not just a formless blob of some kind. A major reason why we instinctively know this is because even though we may not consciously be aware of it, we have already bonded with the child before we even know we are pregnant. This is because as the tiny human being moves down the Fallopian tube, whenever he or she touches the tube, hormonal messages are exchanged. This is what stops the mother's period. These messages cause bonding. Abortion attacks the core of being a woman.

Nonjudgmental counseling is a product of an outlook which is akin to psychology. For many reasons, psychology falls short of the mark of offering real help. Psychology tries to be nonjudgmental. But as you are certainly aware, God holds us accountable for our actions, especially if we do not seek forgiveness. The whole purpose of counseling is to provide the wisdom that the counselee is incapable of providing for herself at that time. People don't come for help if they know the answers, and psychology encourages them to look inward for answers. If they had the answers, they wouldn't need counseling. We do people a disservice if we don't apply our wisdom.

The other problem is that abortion does not respect persons. I don't care how sure a woman is that she wants an abortion, the abortion could still kill her. Or it could still leave her seriously maimed for life. It could leave her other children orphans.

When a woman first faces an untimely pregnancy, she will often go into a panic. Women who are in a panic do not make good decisions. The situation is aggravated by the fact that the hormones of early pregnancy make a lot of women who WANT their child, not want to be pregnant, so you can imagine that a woman who doesn't want to be pregnant in the first place is especially vulnerable.

God loves both the mother and her unborn child. As Christians we are called to show His love. If a woman has an abortion and comes back to us (few will, by the way, if we don't try to reach their hearts), we then have the responsibility to assure her that God loves her and wants her back into a relationship with Him. We must shower her with our love, and judgmentalism has no place.

There are organizations all over the world, including the UK, that offer a woman unconditional love and support. If a woman chooses abortion, they don't stand in the way, but they also don't help her carry out her decision. They make it clear where they stand. They offer any kind of help if she chooses any other alternative. But abortion is also medically unethical, and because of the emotional and spiritual ramifications, they don't help a woman get an abortion. They don't encourage her to do that. You don't need to work with an organization that would place a mother in that kind of spiritual jeopardy. There are alternatives.

Jesus died for that mother and baby. The baby deserves a chance to enjoy the life God intended for him or her. God has a plan for that little one's life, and He chose that mother for that child. The baby is a gift from God, no matter how adverse the circumstances might be. And by the way, I know this from personal experience. Two of my grandchildren were born out of wedlock. We all cherish them. This includes the other family members and the parents. These children have had the effect of turning around what had been a destructive lifestyle and put the parents back on the path to reconciliation with God. God doesn't make mistakes. The mere fact a baby doesn't yet have a detectable heartbeat doesn't matter. And since we can detect a heartbeat at 21 days, nearly all babies have one before the mother is sure she is pregnant, and before she tries to have an abortion.

This is something I hope you will take with the love I intend, and that you will seriously think about it. Rushing a woman to make a decision is part of society these days, with the false claim, for instance, that before there is a heartbeat, we are doing nothing wrong. A decision this life-changing should never be made in haste. Pressure to yield to panic is unbelievable. And to make matters worse, studies show that about 64% of women are being coerced into abortion by either the father or her parents (and occasionally employers and other people), but it has also been shown that some women will NOT admit they are experiencing coercion. Women want and need for the father of the child to support them. Abandonment is frequent.

I tell a woman that even if she chooses abortion, I will be there for her, but I will not help her hurt herself.

Please think about this seriously. I love you, too, and I love your heart. But what you are doing could cost a woman her life, and I know you would never want that on your conscience. The mere fact that you are thinking in terms of a woman's safety tells me that like most people, you are not aware of how dangerous abortion is. There is no such thing as a safe abortion. Even if a woman escapes apparent immediate consequences, there are long term consequences. In the years I have been talking to women, and I have talked to thousands, I have yet to find a single woman who was truly untouched by the adverse consequences. I have talked to two women who showed no emotion whatsoever. One of them worked at an abortion facility. The other one I met online, and she was one of the most vicious people I have ever met. She knew what she was doing, and she didn't care. The vast majority have shown that abortion took something precious from them, and they don't know how to get it back.

You can call me judgmental if you want, but the fact is, the first time a woman gets hurt, who will you judge? Yourself, for not persuading her to choose a different choice? This whole thing is fraught with pitfalls. It's not something to play around with. Seriously. As a sister in the Lord, I hope I can appeal to you to meet these women's needs, including their spiritual needs, with loving guidance to choose a life-affirming choice, so that there will be no regrets and no alienation. Use the opportunity to bring the woman back to God's loving arms.

Please think about this. I care about you, and I care about the women you are working with. I love all of you because Jesus first loved me. I'll write more later. I am praying for you. Your sister in Christ.