False fears spreading about inaccessible abortion in South Dakota

As the false foundations under Roe v Wade crumble more and more year after year, deep anxiety is increasing in those who think there should be no choice given women except to kill the unborn living human being within. Behind this anxiety are those who espouse false fears about what inaccessible abortion in South Dakota will mean for women. Remember, the people espousing these false fears profit from abortion. Of course they are going to come at this from every angle so they can stay in business (at the expense of women and children).

Seeing the writing on the wall (that abortion will soon not be an option in South Dakota) those who speak of "choice" remain fully blinded to and silent about the other options available to women. Instead of lamenting inaccessible abortuaries, true advocates for women would be helping create atmospheres of hope and life promoting the other options women in crisis pregnancies have available to them throughout our state - IN EVERY TOWN.

South Dakotans will soon realize there are over a thousand churches, Catholic and Protestant, willing to come alongside women and children, born and unborn. In every South Dakota town there are churches willing to pay the price to help women. It is no longer true that it's easier for a women to go to an abortion clinic than face people at church. You'll see. The false fears like what follows here are unnecessary. Abortion isn't necessary. There are life options all around.

A July 30, 2008 article in the "Planet: Jackson Hole Online" entitled "Last of the Old Guard: Abortion providers retire in the West, leaving their posts empty" South Dakota takes center stage. The writer starts off with a scenario of a twenty-one year old pregnant South Dakota woman without money or means to travel to Sioux Falls for an abortion.

Julie, 21, was single, in debt from the birth of her first son, and working a desk job at $5.65 an hour. She knew that if she asked for time off - either to have an abortion or to take care of a newborn - that she would lose her job. “I couldn’t feed the son I already had,” she said. “So I did what I could do.” By her estimates, getting to Sioux Falls - some 300 miles away - for a “doctor abortion” would have cost her $660, including $100 for gas, $60 for a hotel and $500 for the procedure itself. She would have needed a car, which she didn’t have, and two days off of work to wait out the state-mandated, 24-hour waiting period. Time and money were resources she simply had no access to. Time and money were resources she simply had no access to. Her friend bought the whiskey for her, and Julie took it to the high school parking lot after putting her 2-year-old to bed. “I drank [the pregnancy] to death under the basketball hoop,” she said. “I nearly drank me dead, too. I had to find that balance between it dying and me dying, you know?” Her friend took her to the hospital for alcohol poisoning once the whiskey - and, they figured, the pregnancy - was gone.

It's important to read these things carefully because ideology is behind the words. "Pregnancy" actually is a synonym here for a living, developing human being. There are two people in this story deserving compassion. Having an abortuary nearby merely means the one is killed and the other is wounded. Not a great option to say the least.

The article laments that there isn't an abortion clinic close by to do the killing. There is no lamenting the fact that no one thought to point this gal toward the local life-friendly options all around her… churches, crisis pregnancy centers, caring individuals. There is a swelling life movement in the South Dakota churches and individuals and a tangible spirit of adoption (ready to adopt women and children). Abortion isn't necessary.

I deal with people in life-crises every week. Having done many many death notifications as a chaplain for the Sioux Falls Police Department I read this article thinking of the numerous of suicide scenes I've walked into - young teenagers hanging by their neck in the garage, young girls who cut their wrists or overdose on pills. Here's the difference between me and the so-called "choice" crowd… walking into those settings I never once had the thought, "pity, if only this girl could have made it to a facility that would have taken her life for her, she wouldn't have had to do it herself." Folks, that's the Planned Parenthood mindset. They aren't thinking what everyone else is thinking…  "pity this person never crossed paths with someone who can give them help and hope."

Please spare me the comments about how this will drive abortion underground and women will have to use coat hangers again. Women aren't that stupid and the statistics used in 1973 about the 5,000-10,000 women a year dying of unsafe abortions were flat made up. The Co-Founder of NARAL admits it today. The actual annual pre-1973 number of deaths related to "back-alley" abortions is closer to 120. Quit with the false fears of back alley abortions.

As this chart shows, "back-alley" abortion deaths weren't a big problem back in 1973, and given today's medical technology and availability, the number of women actually dying from self-induced abortions would be even fewer today.

Every woman's life matters, but the point is we are killing 1.5 million babies a year - a kindergarten-class-a-week in South Dakota - because those who profit from it are spewing false fears based on made up data. Fewer yet would die if those who spoke of "choice" would actually offer women choices.

The Jackson Hole article goes on to lament the graying of the nations abortion doctors and what this shortage means for South Dakota;

South Dakota’s single abortion clinic, on the far eastern side of the state in Sioux Falls, flies doctors in to provide abortions a few hours a week. The doctors “have security from the moment they step into South Dakota until the moment they leave,” said Kathi Di Nicola, Director of Media Relations for the Planned Parenthood clinic. “They just have to.” Three out of four doctors are “seasoned,” said Di Nicola, and one provider, identified in the media as Dr. Miriam McCreary from Minneapolis, came out of retirement just to provide termination services in a state where none of its own doctors are willing to do so. One of the biggest challenges is what to do next if any of these doctors retire from the clinic, Di Nicola said. “They won’t be easy to replace.”  … “we’re seeing the last days of Roe v. Wade.” Even if abortion remains legal, it could become inaccessible.

"Termination services?!" Legit doctors aren't in the business of terminating life. Dr. Kevorkian aside, most doctors signed up to save lives, they took an oath to do so. Let's not misinterpret what this means that the majority of doctors aren't willing to do abortions. It has little to do with fears for their safety, and everything to do with the fact that they know there are two patients involved. The problem isn't that abortion is inaccessible, it's that it is unnecessary.