On September 10, two diverse groups converged on the Missouri Capitol, both with supposedly the same goal – to protect Missouri women.
A small group of Planned Parenthood supporters in purple shirts gathered on the Capitol steps calling for opposition to the override of Gov. Nixon’s veto of the 72-hour reflection period. They held signs which said “Protect Missouri Women.”
Hundreds of Missouri Right to Life members and other groups supporting the override filled the Capitol rotunda in a sea of red shirts calling out, “We like women, yes we do. We like women, how about you?” Post-abortive women and those conceived in rape rallied the crowd with their personal witness of how abortion hurts women, calling for the increased reflection period.
But which group is truly interested in protecting women?
In the book Complications: Abortion’s Impact on Women, authors Angela Lanfranchi, Ian Gentles, and Elizabeth Ring-Cassidy document the devastating impact of induced abortion on women. After several years of intense and rigorous research, the authors outline their findings that abortion harms women physically, psychologically, socially, and spiritually.
The authors present evidence that the link between abortion and breast cancer is incontrovertible with 56 studies showing a positive association. The book also documents immediate physical risks of abortion from injury, including perforation of the uterus, and infections – and subsequent problems such as miscarriage, placenta previa, infertility, and premature births.
Several large studies indicate a significantly higher maternal mortality from induced abortion than from childbirth. The psychological impact of abortion includes much higher rates of depression, anxiety, substance abuse, and suicide. Post-abortive women are also more likely to contract autoimmune diseases.
Chemical abortions too are associated with various risks including fetal malformations in later pregnancies, fatal toxic shock syndrome, hemorrhages, and ectopic pregnancies. The overall failure rate of chemical abortions is at least four percent with some studies suggesting a failure rate as high as 80 percent.
World-wide studies show that sex-selective abortions overwhelmingly target baby girls. These sex-selective abortions have resulted in the loss of over 160 million girls, leaving an imbalance in the population of some countries, like China and India, that puts the remaining women at risk of sex abuse and sex trafficking.
Those in the purple shirts called for women to have less time to consider all of these risks. How can that protect women? As for those of us in red: “We like women, yes we do. We like women and babies, too!”
Blessings,
Pam Fichter
President, Missouri Right to Life