Whether you’re for or against abortion, an objective look at the issue reveals that the effects are deep and far reaching. Abortion is not simply a women’s reproductive choice, nor is it as basic as protecting the life of the unborn. Like the tip of an iceberg, these “surface” effects are just the beginning of a much more massive body of ramifications.  And if you’re like me and you want a in-depth study of as many aspects of abortion as possible, while weeding out the opinion columns from “uninformed Joe from know-it-all-ville,” then the South Dakota Task Force Report is for you.

During the legislative session in 2005, an overwhelming majority of the Legislature voted to create the South Dakota Task Force to Study Abortion.  The report cites various reasons for the creation of the task force, all stemming from testimonies given by women who had undergone abortions and those who counsel women before and after abortions.  During these testimonial hearings the committees that presented to the House and Senate found that:

• A number of women who had undergone abortions testified that they became depressed and were haunted by suicidal ideation.
• It was common for women to sign consents for abortion without being truly informed.
• Many women reported that they were pressured into having an abortion, often by the father of their child, but by others as well.
• They typically did not understand that the procedure would terminate the life of a human being, and this lack of understanding was further complicated by the fact that abortion providers had misled them at the time of the abortion.
• The providers told them that there was “nothing but tissue” inside of them.
• Many of the women testified or reported to post-abortion counselors that if they had been given accurate information, they would not have submitted to the abortion.
• Their feeling that abortion providers had misled them compounded their sense of loss, adding to their depression, which often followed the mothers’ realizations that they were implicated in the deaths of their own children.

Here is a portion of one woman’s chilling testimony:

“…the policy underlying abortion is a lie. First and foremost, because it denies the essential benefit of motherhood. It tells us that we are not forfeiting anything of value for ourselves. We are told we lost nothing, nothing of value. The truth is that the loss is massive. Massive and life altering. Your House Bill 1166 provides an important and essential message that the pregnant mother does have a great benefit, that her child already exists and that she has this existing relationship with her child, and that she has a great fundamental and constitutional right to that relationship, all of which she is giving up, all of which is lost as a result of the abortion…If I had been given this information, I would never had had an abortion.”

In light of the magnitude of such testimonies, the Legislature found need to act to protect the rights, interests, and health of pregnant mothers in South Dakota, and created the South Dakota Task Force to Study Abortion.

When the task force set out to study abortion they truly sought a complete picture.  The scope of the study is as follows:

1. the practice of abortion since its legalization
2. the body of knowledge concerning the development and behavior of the unborn child which has developed because of technological advances and medical experience since the legalization of abortion
3. the societal, economic, and ethical impact and effects of legalized abortion
4. the degree to which decisions to undergo abortions are voluntary and informed
5. the effect and health risks that undergoing abortions has on the women, including the effects on the women’s physical and mental health, including the delayed onset of cancer, and her subsequent life and socioeconomic experiences
6. the nature of the relationship between a pregnant woman and her unborn child
7. whether abortion is a workable method for the pregnant woman to waive her rights to a relationship with the child
8. whether the unborn child is capable of experiencing physical pain
9. whether the need exists for additional protections of the rights of pregnant women contemplating abortion, and
10. whether there is any interest of the state or the mother or the child which would justify changing the laws relative to abortion.

The Task Force heard live testimony of approximately fifty-five witnesses, including thirty-two experts, and considered the written reports and testimony from another fifteen experts. In order to achieve a balanced viewpoint and obtain as much information from diverse points of view as possible, live testimony was divided almost equally between witnesses who support the position that abortion is harmful to women and should be illegal and those who think it should be legal.  They reviewed more 3,500 pages of scientific research and collected affidavits from 2,000 women who had undergone abortions.  With regard to the 2,000 post abortive women, over 99% of them testified that abortion is destructive of the rights, interests, and health of women and that abortion should not be legal.  In case you missed that, I’ll repeat, NINTY-NINE PERCENT testified that abortion is destructive of the rights, interests, and health of women and that abortion should not be legal.

As you can likely infer from the nature and scope of the Task Force, the report is quite thorough and detailed with the final count being 71 pages.  This article is part one of a two part condensed overview of the report.  In part one, I highlight the excerpts from the first four sections of the study.  Part two will deal with the remaining six sections with some concluding thoughts.

Excerpts from “The Practice Of Abortion Since Its Legalization” 

“The Task Force concludes the following:
1. That abortion terminates the life of a unique, whole, living human being;
2. That the physician performing an abortion terminates the life of one of the physician’s patients to whom the physician owes a professional and legal duty;
3. That the authority for the physician to terminate the life of his or her patient rests exclusively upon the written consent of the pregnant mother, which, at the time it is signed, terminates the doctor’s duty to the child; and
4. That the mother has an existing and important and beneficial relationship with her child that is irrevocably terminated by the abortion procedure.” (pg 13)

“The Task Force concludes that there is no traditional or healthy physician-patient relationship between an abortion doctor at Planned Parenthood in South Dakota and the pregnant mother. The only time the abortion doctor sees the patient is in the room where the procedure is to be performed, after the woman has already committed to submitting to the abortion by signing the consent form.” (pg 18)

“…once the women understand that the abortion procedure does not prevent a human being from coming into existence, but instead terminates a life that already exists, they begin to appreciate the benefit and joy the existing child could bring to their lives, and decide not to have an abortion. As a result of the counseling at the Slidell center, Ms. Collins testified that only 45 of the 1,860 pregnant mothers (2%) ultimately had an abortion.” (pg 20)

“In the 20 years that the Slidell Center, the Alpha Center, and the CareNet Pregnancy Resource Center have operated, not a single woman ever reported that they regretted their decision to have their child.” (pg 20)

“At the Slidell Center, Ms. Collins stated that in any given year, 70% to 85% of women seeking post-abortion counseling relate that they made their decision under some form of coercion. More than 80% of these women state that the abortion clinics did not counsel them properly, and that if they had been given accurate information, they would not have submitted to an abortion.” (pg 20)

“Ms. Unruh stated that among the post-abortive women seeking counseling at the Sioux Falls Alpha Center, 75% to 85% in any given year report that they felt they were misled by the the abortion clinics and that their decisions were uninformed and, in many ways, coerced. Among these women were women who had abortions at Planned Parenthood in Sioux Falls.” (pg 20, 21)

“[Post abortive women] almost uniformly express anger toward the abortion providers, their baby’s father, or society in general, which promote abortion as a great right, the exercise of which is good for women. They almost invariably state that they were encouraged to have an abortion by the mere fact that it was legal.” (pg 21)

“The overwhelming majority of women testified that they would never have considered an abortion if it were not legal. Their testimony revealed that they feel that the legalization of abortion simply gave a license to others to pressure them into a decision they otherwise would not have made. Most of the women stated that abortion should not be legal.” (pg 21)

Excerpts from “The Body Of Knowledge Concerning The Development And Behavior Of The Unborn Child Which Has Developed Because Of Technological Advances And Medical Experience Since The Legalization Of Abortion”

“DNA fingerprinting and the refinement of it by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) techniques developed in the mid-1990s have proven that each human being is totally unique immediately at fertilization.” (pg 22)

“A human being at an embryonic age and that human being at an adult age are naturally the same, the biological differences are due only to the differences in maturity. Changes in methylation of cytosine demonstrate that the human being is fully programmed for human growth and development for his or her entire life at the one cell age.” (pg 25)

“Modern molecular biology has discovered that by the third cell division (long before implantation) all control of growth and development are established by the child’s DNA. This means that immediately after conception, all programming for growth of the human being is self-contained.” (pg 25)

“The anatomical, biochemical, and physiological development of a human being also starts early in fetal life and continues long after birth. Although the fetus is wholly dependent on the mother in order to survive, the extremely premature infant is wholly dependent on its surroundings. Even a term baby is dependent on its surroundings in order to survive. The concept of viability is therefore not as interesting as it seemed only some years ago. It is the same human being whether it is an early embryo, a fetus around midterm (20 weeks) or pre-term born after 23-25 weeks of gestation. The human subject is completely helpless and dependent on its care givers for a long time – from conception until late childhood. The child is a whole separate human being from conception and throughout the full gestational period, whether entirely spent in utero or not.

Suggestions or implications that a woman considering an abortion should be told anything about whether or not the fetus is a human being based upon whether the child is or is not of “viable” age would be misleading. The child is a human being before viability just as well as after viability and, as I previously indicated, viability is irrelevant to that question. There is absolutely nothing that can be told to the woman that is different about a child that is a so called “post viable” age as opposed to one that is “pre viable” age with reference to the pure question of whether as a matter of biological fact, the fetus is a human being.

I have traveled all around the world and have lectured in many different countries. The laws of those countries vary widely in how those countries view human beings both born and unborn. Whether a particular adult person holds legal or moral beliefs that individual human beings should be treated with equal respect and dignity, or whether there are justifications for treating them differently or be accorded degrees of respect may reflect the culture, but those individual beliefs are totally irrelevant to whether or not it is a human being. Just because in one culture some adult human beings are not treated equally or not even given legal rights, does not mean they are not human beings. Science is oblivious to such concepts.

It defies all reason to suppose that the relative abilities of the adults or medical professionals at any one point in history or at any one place on earth – external to the child – determines if the child is a member of the human race. If adult care givers are inadequate, their failings do not render one child not human, but another, at the exact same age of gestation, human beings because he or she received proper care. At any one time, children in one part of the world will survive at younger gestational ages than children in other parts of the world because of the difference in the quality of medical services. Those services, administered differently, don’t define the humanity of the children. An unborn child in Africa, twenty-one weeks post-conception is just as much a human being as a twenty-one week post-conception child in the United States despite the fact that the African child may not be able to receive the kind of medical services the child in the United States may receive. The African child is not “viable”. The American child is. Both are human beings.” (pg 28, 29)

“The Task Force finds that the new recombinant DNA technologies indisputably prove that the unborn child is a whole human being from the moment of fertilization, that all abortions terminate the life of a living human being, and that the unborn child is a separate human patient under the care of modern medicine.” (pg 31)

Excerpts from “The Societal, Economic, And Ethical Impact And Effects Of Legalized Abortion”

“The substantial negative impact legalized abortion has had on our society and culture is almost incalculable. In many ways it has deformed our nation. It has created a unique and especially painful exploitation of women. It has subjected women to the unjust and selfish demands of male sexual partners. It has subjected women to unnecessary risks of psychological and physical injury. It has denigrated the role of a mother as a unique individual because of the unique person she carries. It isolates a woman in her painful loss of her child. It has deprived our country of millions of children.” (pg 31, 32)

“Dr. Willke noted that only approximately 0.1% of rapes result in a pregnancy” (pg 32)

“I was asked to share some genetic information with you regarding the issue of incest. As many of you are aware, the union of two closely related people may result in an infant with genetic deformities or retardation. That is why in the United States we have laws against close relatives marrying. What you may not be aware of is that deformities and/or retardation occur in the smallest minorities of these instances. Ninety-seven percent of the time, these children are normal.” (pg 32)

“What we do know, and what we can say, is that abortion is unethical and immoral and our support of it as a society wounds all of us. It exploits the mother, destroys her rights, destroys her interests, and damages her health, and does so by killing her child. It isolates her in her pain by placing all of the blame for the loss of her child upon her. It kills an innocent human being, and in the process creates the illusion that a mother and her child – who in reality have interests in harmony with each other – are somehow enemies. It portrays life, the greatest of gifts, as an intruder of no worth. It portrays the role of mother as valueless.” (pg 34)

Excerpts from “The Degree To Which Decisions To Undergo Abortions Are Voluntary And Informed”

“The total record reflects the following:
a. The abortion providers fail to disclose the essential nature of the procedure – that it terminates the life of the woman’s existing child;
b. When they do discuss the procedure, they provide misleading information in misleading terms, as previously discussed in this Report;
c. The abortion providers give misleading information about the psychological and physical risks to the mother, and do not disclose the direct injury to the child that leads to its death;
d. The abortion providers assume the women have made their decisions before they reach the facility;
e. The abortion providers place the burden upon the mothers to discover material facts on their own;
f. The abortion doctor’s only contact with the mother prior to the abortion surgery consists of a pre-recorded audio tape, and the first face-to-face meeting of the doctor and pregnant patient is after she has signed the consent forms, paid for the surgery, and is on the procedure table (See Section II-A);
g. The pregnant mothers are often pressured into having an abortion by outside forces;
h. The contact and procedures by the facility personnel prior to the abortion are inherently coercive and force a quick decision; and
i. The fatal and irrevocable nature of the decision is not made known to the mother and adequate time for reflection is not provided.” (pg 37, 38)

“The only information given to 814 out of 819 pregnant women who were subjected to an abortion at the Planned Parenthood facility in 2003 was the age of the pregnancy. Women are not told that the procedure kills their already existing child. In fact, Dr. Ball stated that at Planned Parenthood, even if a woman asks whether the child exists or not, she will not answer her.
This failure is critical to the women’s decision, because when information about the child is given to women at pregnancy help centers, it is reported that 85% to 98% of the women decide to not have an abortion.” (pg 38)

That concludes part one.  Come back next week for part two!