One common assertion of the pro-choice movement is that legal abortion is safe abortion.

Most of them will point to statistics that seem to prove that abortion is safe and complications are rare.

For one thing, many states do not have strict laws requiring abortion providers to report complications. Since it is generally within abortion practitioners best interests not to report such complications, they usually do not get reported. Furthermore, many abortion clinics do not see the complications resulting from abortions. Women hurt by an abortion will often show up in emergency rooms or go to their regular doctors with abortion-related infections.

Also, many complications from abortions do not show up until later. Abortion, particularly repeated abortion, can increase the likelihood of premature birth and miscarriage as the cervix, unnaturally opened in an abortion procedure, is stretched and weakened. Scarring of the uterine lining, another common cause of miscarriage and infertility, can also result from abortion.

Here are some quotes on abortion's safety.

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"I had complications, just like everybody else. I have perforated uteruses. I have had all kinds of problems --bleeding, infections-- Lord knows how many of those women are sterile now. I remember getting called down to my chairman's office because a young lady that I had done an abortion on showed up...and the abortion had been incomplete. I had not done my job right, and she passed an arm or a leg and she freaked out because she didn't realize what happened."

Dr. Anthony Levantino, Meet the Abortion Providers Conference

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From Citizen Magazine article "Bringing Good Things to Life" by Karla Dial, June 2003:

"I thought the one reason the government made abortion legal was so women could be in a clean environment with medical doctors," said Oliver, a licensed practical nurse [who went to a clinic considering abortion] "But there was an inch of dust on everything. The health department would have shut down my hospital in five minutes for any one of the violations I saw in that place."

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"Oh no, I've done 13 year olds before. When they're ten, maybe I'll notice."

Abortionist Alen J. Kline, on whether he noticed Dawn Ravenell's age while performing the abortion that killed her

Legal Action for Women Press Release FAX 2/1/94

Also quoted in "The Doctor of Death" Voices for the Unborn March 1994 p 5

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"We try to use the physician for his technical skill and reduce the one-to-one relationship with the patient. We usually see the patient for the first time on the operation table and then not again. More contact is just not efficient."

Abortionist Edward Allred, quoted in The San Diego Union, October 12, 1980. Also quoted in Anthony Perry. "Doctor's Abortion Business Is Lucrative." ALL About Issues December 1980, pages 10, 14, and 15

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"Rarely a week went by when he didn't treat a woman arriving at the hospital after an abortion. Pain, excessive bleeding, infections, perforated cervixes and bladders, ruptured uteruses, severed fallopian tubes. Some needed blood transfusions. Others - surgery. He couldn't count how many times he'd removed retained fetal parts from women. He can't forget the 16-year-old who arrived with almost 1m of bowel sitting between her legs. She required surgery; her bladder and bowel torn through, her uterus ruptured. "We found the torso, buttocks, a bit of a hand and the baby's head still inside her," the doctor said. "The baby had been literally ripped, drawn and quartered. The girl wasn't dead but she was close."

His account is from the bad old days of illegal abortion, surely. Well, no. This is but one story not from the backyard but the front yard of so-called safe, legal abortion. But no one wants to know about the women maimed by abortion today."

From the article "So What if the Aborted Baby Cried?" by Melinda Tankard Reist, November 9, 2004

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"[Abortion is] the dirty work of our field. The sad truth is that the people who moonlight at the clinics are grade-B doctors. They're not the cream of the crop. And it's not because they're committed- it's because they can't find steady work."

Unidentified Pro-Choice OB/GYN The New York Times Magazine January 18, 1998

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"The abortion clinics never accept any responsibility for complications. They just say it was not their fault. The concern is not the patient at this time. The concern is with taking care of the doctor and keeping his reputation and the clinic's [reputation] clean."

Carol Everett, Former Clinic Director and Owner "Meet the Abortion Providers"

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"Most physicians regard abortion as a stigmatized operation done by people who are otherwise incompetent and can't do anything else."

Warren Hern, Abortionist American Medical News, September 5, 1994

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"... abortion is still a very fringe practice. There aren't a lot of people who want to get into abortion provision ... And the ones that we do have applying to us for training often have very dodgy histories and backgrounds. And if you dig deep enough, you'll find a death or two or a malpractice suit somewhere along the line ..."

David Grundmann, Australian Abortion Provider. National Abortion Federation Risk Management Seminar, Seattle, WA, September 1993

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"It's true that abortion providers are perceived as not very good doctors -- that they have no alternative so they do abortions, that they cannot earn a living any other way."

Richard Hausknecht, Abortionist. The New York Times Magazine, January 18, 1998

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"If we see a doctor out there who's really hurting women, it's incumbent upon us to blow the whistle -- no matter what the outcome. But it's a real choice, because you could end up with someone worse -- or no doctor at all ..."

Ron Fitzsimmons, Director of National Coalition of Abortion Providers Abortion Report, July 7, 1994

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"It is extremely difficult to watch doctors lie, clinic workers cover up, and hear terrifying storles of women dragged out of clinics to die in cars on the way to the hospital without beginning to question the party line. I began to wonder if we were really caring for these women, or if we were just working for another corporation whose only interest was the bottom line."

Judith Fetrow, Former Planned Parenthood worker, from a speech to The Pro-Life Action League

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"There has been almost a conspiracy of silence in declaring [abortion's] risks. Unfortunately, because of emotional reactions to legal abortion, well documented evidence from countries with a vast experience of it, receives little or no attention in either the medical or lay press. This is medically indefensible when patients suffer as a result...It is significant that some of the more serious complications occurred with the most senior and experienced operators..."

Stallworthy, J.A., et al., "Legal Abortion: A Critical Assessment of Risk," The Lancet, December 4, 1971

This is an old reference, but it is significant because it documents the fact that legalization of abortion (it was legal in several states in 1971) did not end abortion's dangers. Many illegal abortion practitioners simply became legal ones.

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"[Abortion] is the only elective surgical procedure that I know of in which the doctor performing the procedure is not responsible for follow-up care nor does he or she take an active role in dealing with the complications... it is bad because it pushes sloppy medical care upon women who have been led to believe that their only choice is to abort their babies."

Dr. Lenora Berning, an emergency room physician who has treated women for abortion-related problems

Quoted in "Doctors Call Abortion Bad Medicine" Lancaster New Era Oct 28, 1999.

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For first-hand accounts of abortion complications, read testimonies in the Former Abortion Providers Section (particularly Joy Davis and Carol Everett)

Here are some quotes related to abortion's safety from DeathRoe. (Life Dynamics)

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From the blog "Abortion Clinic Days" "How do you spot a bad apple?" an abortion worker says:

"In the case of abortion services, the stigma and silencing that women endure makes the field wide open to non-quality providers."

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In an article regarding early medical abortions, British journalists spoke with a number of providers.

"It is true that there is a reduced risk," one Pembrokeshire nurse told us. "Certainly, if one undertakes the surgical option, there are a good deal of things that go wrong. Patients have been known to have their cervix punctured, which can lead to infertility or worse. And of course, there's an inherent risk in going under general anaesthetic in itself."

The article noted that, Due to the sensitive nature of the subject matter, the anonymity of the four professionals - whose views have been put forward here - has been preserved.

A Tough Choice To Swallow : Part two: 6-8-2006 http://www.pembrokeshiretv.com/content/templates/v6-article.asp?articleid=2198

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"I am ashamed that I have tirelessly defended a man (George Tiller) who subjected me to so much pain. I told my friend that story and she said that it was the most inhumane, horrific story of abortion she's ever heard."

Abortion patient

Life News: Women With Bad Abortion Experiences Support Abortion-Death Probe, 1-18-2006

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"Would we like to do it (Inspect abortion clinics) more frequently? Absolutely," said Williamson, the Alabama state health officer said. "But the nursing homes get more inspection because those are federally funded surveys. We have to figure out how to do the clinic inspections with state dollars."

Alabama state health department regulatory agency Birmingham News, Clinic's closing renews debate, Summit patients dismayed by care received :5-21-2006

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Beacon Womens Center. abortion clinic- Consent to outpatient surgery form states:{/b]

"I understand that the purpose of an abortion is to end a pregnancy. I understand that my first trimester abortion consists of stretching open the mouth of the uterus (cervix) and removing the contents of my uterus-with surgical instruments and gentle suction. As a result of surgical procedures there may be material risks of: infection, allergic reaction, disfiguring scars, severe loss of blood, loss of function of a limb or organ, paralysis, paraplegia or quadriplegia, brain damage, cardiac arrest or death. In addition to these material risks, there may be other possible risks involved in the procedure including but not limited to: perforation, cervical tear, formation of blood clots in the uterus, hemorrhage, blood transfusions, DIC: the inability to clot blood which may be fatal, Fistula formation: An opening between bowel, bladder, ureter, vagina, and/or skin, emboli: clots that might travel to other parts of my body and be fatal, incomplete abortion, missed abortion, cervical incompetency, emotional distress, infection, possible need for immediate surgery or other additional surgery which might include a hysterectomy, laparascopy, and laparotomy, and ectopic pregnancy"

This document also details the extreme risks of anesthesia and states that

"No guarantees of assurance have been made to me concerning the results of this procedure."

The patient is told to sign her name, but the name of the doctor performing the abortion is not included or revealed on this form.

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David Toub, abortionist
Bella Online, Dr. Toub Discusses the Safety of at Home Abortions.

"Abortion, particularly early suction curettage, gives the impression of not being a very difficult procedure. It's fast, very safe and highly effective. However, impressions can be misleading. Ninety-nine times out of one hundred, everything goes very smoothly. But it's that one time that can be associated with complications, some of which are very serious, even deadly."

and

"...all of us who are well-trained to provide abortions and who have considerable clinical experience still have complications. About once a year, the average experienced abortion provider may perforate a uterus. Indeed, a pregnant uterus is much more easily perforated than a nonpregnant one."

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James T. MacMahon, abortionist
American Medical News, 7/5/1993 and LA Times "The Abortions of Last Resort" 1-7-1990

"There's a great deal of craft to this procedure. Frankly I don't think I was any good at all until I had done 3,000 or 4,000."

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Kenneth Edelin, abortionist- Massachusetts- New England Journal of Medicine, interview: http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/355/1/1/DC2

"One of the interesting things that happened after New York State liberalized it's abortion laws is that abortion clinics opened up all over the state. They were not always run by the most professional or skilled or experienced physicians."

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Krystal, pro-choice
www.fwhc.org-Krystal's story "My sister had once worked in an abortion clinic & her stories of what went on at work horrified me."

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Lewis Koplik, abortionist
Boston Globe: 'Home abortion' safety issues a pro-choice dilemma; 8-26-1991

"I have used 4-, 5-, 6-millimeter cannulas and still occasionally I have perforated a woman's uterus. I am a specialist, board certified. I have all the credentials and still I screwed up. They are saying the procedure is so benign you can't harm anybody or cause any trouble. I don't believe it. Those who propose Menstrual Extraction say they can tell when the uterus is empty."

Yet even with the more advanced equipment used in clinic abortions, he says, "I may leave tissue."

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Margarette Wooten, abortion clinic employee
LA Times, Doctor accused in abortion suit testifies: 7-30-1989

Margarette Wooten told a court in a case involving the death of an abortion clinic that she quit because:

"It was just a slaughterhouse and I couldn't take it any more."

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"Abortion is a simple procedure except for the uterus' total intolerance to poor technique... In the medical practice, there are few surgical procedures given so little attention and so underrated in its potential hazard as abortion...it is a commonly held view that complications are inevitable."

Abortionist Warren Hern
Abortion Practice, (J.B. Lippenot Company) 1984 page 101

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"Had this quality of care been provided by any other medical provider -- family physician, obstetrician, or emergency physician -- it would be considered grossly negligent. By an abortion provider, it does not even cause a stir. In fact, it goes un-noted and un-reported. There is no other practice of medicine where people can suffer and die from complications of your intervention without your being in some way professionally accountable, involved in their care, and at the very least, made aware of it -- except abortion. Abortion is bad medicine."

Lenora Berning, MD ER Doctor
Lancaster New Era article "Abortion is bad medicine; quality care is lacking" 11/01/99

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"This will make three clinics on probation and one that has lost its license. When four out of ten of the industry gets licensing action, that's a high number. That's a real high number. We're doing a lot more enforcement of other facilities, too. You don't hear about it very much, but it's going on."

Rick Harris, Alabama Bureau of Health Provider Standards director
The Associated Press, Health dept. wants probation for Birmingham abortion clinic, 11/17/2006

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Abortion clinic employee, Liza Berdiel's

"behavior is outrageous and without excuse. The motive was to make money. The victims suffered from the lack of medical professionalism."

Berdiel was prosecuted for performing abortions without a license.

Assistant Ocean County Prosecutor Martin J. Anton

Asbury Park Press, "Abortionist's receptionist sent to jail for illegally performing non-surgical abortions" 10/27/2006

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An order from the State Board of Health called the violations by Summit Medical (abortion) Center in Birmingham "egregious." saying, "We feel we need to move toward revoking their license."

Dr. Donald Williamson, Alabama State health officer
Montgomery Advisor, Abortion clinic closed, 5/19/2006

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"There were multiple violations of rules over multiple days [at the abortion clinic.]"

Dr. Don Williamson, Alabama state health officer
Birmingham News, Clinic's closing renews debate, 5/21/200

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Rep. Robert G. Marshall, described one abortionist's inadequacies.

"She did not know how to do advanced cardiopulmonary resuscitation. No one in the abortion clinic knew how to use a crash cart for such emergencies. She was not trained to do any of this."

Robert G. Marshall, Virginia Rep.
Richmond Times Dispatch, Senate panel rejects a measure on abortion clinics, 2/24/2006

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"So, I question how the Department of Health, which has never visited any one of these places (abortion clinics) and probably doesn't even know how many there are in the state, could conclude that, in fact, the procedures are safe."

Virginia State Legislator
Daily Press, Senate Panel kills abortion, 2/23/ 2006

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NJ Acting Consumer Affairs Director, Jeffrey Burstein said this about abortionist Flavius Thompson of the Pleasant Women's Pavilion after the state pulled his license:

"During our investigation, we found that medical waste material was being improperly disposed of down the sanitary sewer at that location," and, "If proper procedures are not followed, patients are potentially put in danger. That is wholly unacceptable. The Board of Medical Examiners expects its licensees to adhere to legal and professional standards of conduct, as does the public."

Jeffrey Burstein, Acting New Jersey Consumer Affairs Director

Tri-Town News, Doctor surrenders license:2/16/2005 Tri-Town News, Doctor awaits hearing on future of license: 2/2/2005

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"According to CNN and other media and your Board's records, Dr.Laurence Reich has a long history of sexual misconduct against patients, which led to a license suspension in 1982 and a 10- year probationary period that ended in 1994. Further, he was arrested in 2002 on sexual battery charges and pleaded no contest to sexual exploitation by a physician. In short, this individual has a clear pattern of violating the public trust that has been placed in him, yet he continues to see patients."

Barbara Boxer, Pro- choice U.S. Senator
Press Release of Senator Boxer , Boxer Requests Suspension of Doctor's License, 12/9/2005

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"The Board of Healing Arts has taken not months but years to take care of the problems at one (abortion) clinic. Abortion in Kansas has come down to the level of care in a Third World country."

Peggy Mast, Kansas Rep.
The Wichita Eagle, Veto stays intact on abortion clinic bill, 4/29/2005

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"There's a wall of silence. It's just like with the police. There's a brotherhood that doesn't feel comfortable most of the time reporting misconduct."

Commenting in a story about medical practice in general

Arthur Levin, director of the Center for Medical Consumers The Village Voice, When medicine is murder: 4/2/2005

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"Patient care was left entirely up to the personnel in the office. If he had someone really good, then patient care was really good. The next person might come in and (that person) was really horrible. Then that's what happened to patient care - it was horrible."

A doctor who used to work with abortionist Hachamovitch The Arizona Republic
History of trouble at clinics abortion centers accumulate record of 6 deaths, 28 suits: 1/17/1999

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"It was really a case of an assembly line, conducting abortions, one after another, three to five minutes apart."

Attorney for the family of a girl who died from a legal abortion
ABC 20/20 Transcript #99030802-j11, A Woman's right, a woman's risk, 3/8/1999

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"There isn't anybody watching them, and too many times their qualifications are subpar."

Julie D'Angelo, Attorney with the Center for Public Interest Law in San Diego
LA Times, Handful of abortion clinics put poor at risk for the record, 4/5/1999

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"Very frequently we will find out about a patient with an (abortion) complication only because they are ultimately transferred to an emergency room."

Ron Joseph, California State medical board's executive director
LA Times, Handful of abortion clinics put poor at risk for the record, 4/5/1998

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"We call them [abortion clinics] chop shops, they are legal, but they are practicing medicine that is below the standard of care."

Dr. Jorge Carreon, Longtime OBGYN
LA Times, Handful of abortion clinics put poor at risk for the record, 4/5/1998

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"There have always been problems identifying deaths secondary to abortions. Death certificates are not the best source of death information, and we've always had concerns we're not getting all the deaths through the death certificate system."

A federal health official, who asked not to be named Washington Times, Statistics may be misleading on deaths caused by abortion, 6/4/1994

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More quotes:

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Former abortionist Dr. Beverly McMillan said the following in a speech at a Pro-Life Action League Convention:

"So for a number of months I just medical directed. I kept track of our complications; we had monthly meetings where we went over morbidity; we fortunately did not go through mortality. I had one of the worst complications at the clinic. I perforated a uterus and sucked a piece of small bowel right into the tubing. Something very interesting came out of this. We had the young lady taken over the hospital where the residents took care of her and a surgeon spliced her bowel back together, and I went over to see her about two days later before she left the hospital to just say hello and are you doing okay, and to tell her I was sorry this had happened. She didn't want to talk to me. She wasn't angry at me. She didn't want to think about the abortion, thank you. She was ready to get out. Denial. Absolute denial just right there. That's why abortionists don't get sued. These folks don't want to think about it for at least two years and then the Statute of Limitations is up. That is (denial) the reason that many women don't sue from complications from abortion."

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"Complications following abortions performed in free-standing clinics is one of the most frequent gynecologic emergencies . . . encountered. Even life-endangering complications rarely come to the attention of the physician who performed the abortion unless the incident entails litigation. The statistics presented by Cates represent substantial under- reporting and disregard women's reluctance to return to a clinic, where, in their mind, they received inadequate treatment."

L. Iffy, "Second Trimester Abortions," JAMA, vol. 249, no. 5, Feb. 4, 1983, p. 588.

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"In 1972 I began seeing a marked increase in the number of patients who had had legal abortions. At that time I also began seeing patients with significant complications after legal abortions."

Matthew Bulfin, M.D. "A New Problem in Adolescent
Gynecology" Southern Medical Journal, August 1979.

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"Not only do deaths from illegal abortions continue to occur, but constitutional abortion has added its own casualties....Indeed, exhaustive study has shown that maternal deaths resulting from legal abortions are replacing those due to illegal abortions."

Mark E. Chopko, Phillip H. Harris and Helen M. Allvare, Phi Kappa Phi Journal, Fall 1989

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Former abortionist Dr. Bernard Nathanson recalls a conversation he had with a clinic worker:

"One more thing. You got to get those doctors shaped up. I mean half of them don't even wash their hands anymore before doing an abortion, let alone scrubbing. They refuse to use masks or caps, and their mustaches are dragging into the suction machines....One guy refuses to take the cigar out of his mouth while doing abortions....Our garbage problem is impossible, and its getting worse every day. I mean, there are these huge piles of our stuff stacked up in the hallway. Man, we use a lot of disposables, and the building refuses to help us with it except to make the usual garbage rounds once a day. Anyway, they don't want to handle it because its all bloody and all."

Bernard N. Nathanson MD "Aborting America" New York: Doubleday Company 1979, p 99

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"To [abortionist Robert] Crist, the quality of abortoin doctors is one of the most troubling aspects of what abortion has become....the few doctors willing to replace [those who are retiring] Crist says, are "mostly physicians who have had difficulty establishing regular ob-gyn practices." As an example, he mentions a clinic in Nebraska where a young doctor was brought in to replace an older one. "Out of his first six months of work, there are nine malpractice suits...After it was apparent the guy was a klutz, they kept using him, and trying to cover for him, because they couldn't find another abortion provider. It's a bad picture."

St. Petersburg Times, June 3, 1990 (Quoted in Access: Key to Pro-Life Victory by Mark Crutcher Life Dynamics Inc.)

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The following 2 quotes are from Achieving Peace in the Abortion War by Rachel MacNair (found here

60 Minutes did a piece called "Suzanne Logan's Story," about health hazards at a Maryland clinic. Ms. Logan was brain-damaged and would spend the rest of her short life in a nursing home due to anesthesia complications. She died there on December 1, 1992, after the story ran. The report showed her attorney, Patrick Malone, saying:

"The anesthesia was given without any monitoring whatsoever, without an anesthesiologist present, without a nurse anesthetist present, without the normal safeguards that are part of standard modern American medical care. I've seen a lot of cases, and met a lot of doctors, and reviewed a lot of records, and I've never seen anything like this."

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Judith Fetrow (a former clinic worker) reported from her former work at a San Francisco Planned Parenthood clinic.

"The most horrifying complication that I witnessed was a woman who stopped breathing during the abortion. Dr. Michael Susman just walked out of the room when he was finished. Despite my telling him that the client was not breathing, he left me alone with her. When Dr. Susman was forced to return, we didn't even follow emergency protocol for that situation. It was a miracle that this woman didn't die."

"Meet the Abortion Providers III: The Promoters," Audiotape. Conference held by the Pro-life Action League, April 3, 1993.

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Carol Everett, former abortion clinic owner and administrator tells how she administered several abortion clinics in Dallas, and ended up deciding to oppose abortion. She describes a case in which the doctor telephoned and said,

"The coroner called with the results of the autopsy. The cause of death was hemorrhaging from a cervical tear." I went numb. "We could have saved [her] life!" my mind screamed. We only needed to have sutured her cervix. We had everything we needed in the clinic to save [her] life, with one exception -- a doctor willing to take the time to re-examine his patient to determine the cause of the bleeding. . . . Even a first-year intern would have checked for the source of such profuse bleeding."

Carol Everett with Jack Shaw, Blood Money, (Oregon: Multnomah Press Books, Questar Publishers, Inc., 1992) 21.

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In an interview Carol Everett is quoted saying the following:

After Everett mentioned that "in the last 18 months I was in the business, were completing over 500 abortions monthly and killing or maiming one woman out of 500" the interviewer asked:

Q.: how did you keep these complications and deaths from the public?

A.: the woman would be loaded into my car (an ambulance outside an abortion clinic is terrible advertising) and transported to a hospital to protect the doctor and the abortion clinics reputation. The concern is not with the patient, only in keeping an unblemished reputation. You have a built-in cover up with the patient's family. They are dealing with their guilt and emotions over the situation and do not want to deal with the added pressure of exposing the truth through the media.

From the Human life alliance advertising supplement article "What I saw in the Abortion Industry"

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From Planned Parenthood's records- one clinic worker describes what she saw:

"Dr. Leerson started the procedure without sterile gloves. He inserted the sterile speculum, clamped the uterus and then did the g.c. He literally crammed the cannula in, withdrew it upon seeing the pain she was in and gave her a block. - I think his sterile procedure should be questioned."

From Robert H. Ruff "Aborting Planned Parenthood: Documented Proof of Planned Parenthood's Systematic Exploitation of Teenagers and Taxpayers" (New York: Life Cycle Books 1988

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Often, it is pro-choice organizations such as Planned Parenthood that oppose laws that would require abortion clinics to meet certain standards and to be inspected regularly.

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