Romanowski, Richard R.

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The Linacre QuarterlyVolume 34 | Number 3 Article 20August 1967Abortion: A Fetal ViewpointRichard R. RomanowskiFollow this and additional works at: http://epublications.marquette.edu/lnqRecommended CitationRomanowski, Richard R. (1967) "Abortion: A Fetal Viewpoint," The Linacre Quarterly: Vol. 34 : No. 3 , Article 20.Available at: http://epublications.marquette.edu/lnq/vol34/iss3/20Abortion-. A Fetal Viewpoint RICHARD R. RoMANOWSKI, M.D. People the world over warmed to the wonder of octuplets born to a young Mexican couple on March 10, 1967. This human interest story, carried by major news media, magni-fied the miracle of human birth once more--it mattered not that the sur-. vivors' weight averaged only ten ounces, because humanity is not a matter of mass or size! Although two to three months premature, with arms and legs no larger than adults' fing-ers, these four boys and four girls were not confused with anything else -and were not called anything else but boys or girls even though very tiny, because humanity is not a matter of size or weight. All the world recog-nized them as human. Yet, the pro-ponents of a liberal abortion law would have us scrape out human lives at the tender stage of six months intrauterine age--when the unborn child has been living for six months and weighs more than a pound. Embryologists remind us that all our internal organs are well begun and well formed at eight weeks of intrauterine age. The chief changes thereafter are those of growth and specialization of our tissues in the mother's womb. "Even in the embryo of six weeks the heart exhibits the general external shape and markings that characterize it permanently." 1 And we know that the human heart begins to beat at about three weeks of intrauterine age--that is certainly an essential characteristic of human life, the life that actually begins with 276 the growth of the fertilized ovu . It is an accepted factin both the U I ted States and England that the ur rn child rna y inherit estates by wil n-joy property rights and acquire · p-erty by descent-all these ·l be received upon birth. The unborn child may ale be party to litigation as well as " 'ne-ficiary of trusts and also rna re-cover for prenatal injury. In 49, in a prenatal injury case in h io, Williams versus Marian Rapid r ··an-sit Company Inc., the Ohio Su1 erne Court held that the unborn 'h ild was a "person" within the ffi ( Ding of the Ohio State Constitutim and hence had constitutional 1 Yhts, among them, a recognized rit, ·l t to take action for injuries in utero. For the unborn child, abortio 1 is a cruel infringement upon person. 1 and property rights-the most bCJ ic of which is the right to life itselft Again, our humanity is not l!leas-ured by sizes. We rna ture in a I: sizes, shapes and weights; short, tall ; bese and thin, and the tiniest of human "Davids" have the same rights ,ls the "Goliaths." Or ... in times past had the same rights. The abortion liberals now want the state to sanction, and the doctor to perform, abortions-emptying the uterus of life whenever there is sub-stantial risk that the child might be born with grave physical or mental defects. Thus intrauterine lives would be sacrificed without proof of benefit LlNACRE QuARTERLY to anyone. A risk is only a ris~:.:, ·not actual harm or detriment. Further-more, this liberalization supposes that all defective children are auto-matically inferior and cannot be self-supporting. Yet we all know handi-capped or deformed adults who are charming personalities · and often earn good incomes. Would you have sacrificed the children born just a few years ago with polio? Today we have conquered polio, and can pro-tect against it; should any mother have been given power to eliminate those lives at a tender helpless age? We often hear how rubella or Ger-man measles can cause some 40 per cent of the infected infants to ·be born with congenital defects. Yet many of these defects are minor and can be corrected. The majority of infants subjected to German measles infec-tion in utero are perfect births. It seems more humane to allow all to he delivered and merely execute the imperfect or handicapped. What kind of law would sacrifice a majority of normal children to eliminate a defective minority? But the key question is: When does intrauterine life really begin? Those in favor of liberal abortions say they don't know and that it is not im-portant. But others know; the em-bryologists and physiologists know and the mothers know! Dr. Arey, professor of Ana to my Emeritus of Northwestern University writing in the 1965 edition of his text Develop-mental Anatomy states in his preface: "The unfolding of the developmental story in this book is an account of his own (the reader's) formative COurse." Both Doctors Streeter and Arey refer to specimens as "human AUGUST' 1967 embryos" with a heart and system of blood vessels established through four weeks of intrauterine life. At four months the face has a truly hu-man appearance and individual dif-ferences become recognizable. 2 It is quite evident that the child ten minutes before birth is the same child as ten minutes after birth. If we retreat further, hour after hour and month after month of in-trauterine life, the same holds true-it is the same child. Since it grows and moves long before the mother is aware, it certainly is living and living long before the mother discovers that she is truly "with child." If a three pound premature infant is born at six or seven months, wrap-ped in its amniotic membranes (caul), all strive to preserve its thread of life, regardless of the mother's age, health, marital status or contentions of rape! No one denies that infant's right to life! Who can deny this tiny premature its humanity crying in the incubator? Yet just let that same in-fant, still sealed in amniotic mem-branes, be · three or four months younger, and three ounces instead of three pounds, and the abortion lib-erals would deny its right to life, bas-ing their contentions on the mother's health, marital status and claim of rape (all beside the point). Can the mere accident of time, just a few months time, deprive us of our hu-manity? Anyone who has ever de-livered or ever seen a three pound premature infant, realizes it is indeed an actual human being-so O.K., a three ounce individual is still human. If it is a crime to murder a new-born weighing three or four pounds, it is a crime to murder a child in 277-. · ' utero weighing three ounces who soon grows to three pounds. If the newborn is human in the· delivery room at seven months, it is human in the uterus at 6 and 5 and 4 and 3 and 2 months! Else whence come these humans? the first moment of concepti<" , we have the same obligations and uties to the embryo as to any other b an; and the embryo has the same :ghts as any other human, includi · the right to life, legal counsel ar_ jury What mother does not know, after she misses a few menstrual periods, and then is aware of movement with-in her, that she is indeed "with · child"? About five months later that child is born. The abortion liber-alists ignore the generally recognized medical view that human life begins at conception, and the mother who feels life within her body a f 16 weeks of pregnancy can often count back· and tell her doctor when she con-ceived-she certainly knows when life began! Should an accidental mis-carriage occur at three months, the mother will often ask her doctor, "was it a boy or a girl"? She knows human life was in her, and human life was lost. Only abortionists seem to have trouble telling if such life is human. If we want to determine the species in any other context, we count the chromosome number; the number of chromosomes tells us the species since each species has its own specific num-ber and 46 is the specific number for humans. Embryologists have been doing this for years and they know that human embryos have 46 chro-mosomes. If we had any last doubts about whether a two week's or two month's fetus is human, the number of chromosomes-46-eliminates the doubt and makes it undeniably human! Since the embryo is human from 278 trial. In short if the State, or any _oup wants abortion laws liberaliz€:· and this means abortion on derr ''ld-then the state is obligated to r wide every such embryo on tria ' with judge, jury and public defer ~r ~s well as a public executioner:. ( · ~til we allow the state to take hve: ·.vith-out due process of law? Why should doctors dedicr ~d to the preservation of life, be ac ~d to become executioners? The . lppo-cra tic oath still reads "I will f ve an abortive to no woman" ... Sc 1e at-torneys with no code of ethics ~- - their own and unwilling to adopt -my-would like physicians to at :ndon their famous Ethical Code of -: ntu-ries in the hope that some ~ ~·esent social problems might be allev ·.1ted. Dr. Joseph Trainer, associa · ~ ~ro­fessor and director of health : 'rv1ces at the U ni versi ty of Oregon C edical School says: "There is no poin t what-ever in attempting to hide the need for abortion behind a medic· . skirt. At the present state of scic ce. of medicine there is hardly a conceiV-able justification for interrupting a pregnancy on grounds of preserving the life of the mother."3 We ask: "If there is no justification on grounds of preserving the life .of the mother, how can taking the hfe of the fetus be justified at all"? Doctor Trainer further states: LINACRE QuARTERLY Abortion is a procedure carrying a compli-cated variable risk, often poorly understood by physicians and not at all by the women who seek it. The chief complications from abortion are related to hemorrhage, uterine ·perforation resulting in peritonitis, uterine and tubal infection, and endocrine-based metabolic disorders. These may occur only acutely with quick resolution or . . . they may terminate fatally. In Sweden legal abortions have become · absurd, now they are being done for "fatigue." In one study of 54 such women, 24 were satisfied and grateful for the procedure (abortion), 3 refused to talk about it, 4 said they had guilt feelings which . they re-pressed and 15 were beseiged with major feelings of guilt and remorse while 8 developed frank psychiatric disease. The further dangers of abortion are mentioned by Doctor Muller in the Wqrld Medical Journal (13: 78-80 1966) : Both physical and mental injury may result from legal, as well as illegal abortion, as statistics from the Soviet Union and else-where have shown. Apart from the risk to the patient, there is a risk that the doctor performing large numbers of abortions may himself break down. In countries where abortion is entirely legal, doctors who have undertaken a number of these operations on healthy women ulti-mately have needed psychiatric help them-selves. It seems that for abortions a speeial robot-like constitution. is needed . . . Most tragically, the liberalization of the abortion law would do little toward reducing the number of illegal abortions - as proved in countries allowing abortion for such things as "nervous exhaustion." "The liberal revisions of the AUGUST, 1967 · Swedish law have reduced illegal abortions only slightly. They have made therapeutic abortion available to a group of predominantly married women with an unwanted preg-nancy. However, illegal abortions have increased in the past 25 to 30 years in many countries both those with and without a broad social policy of legal abortions."4 Medically speaking, a well de-signed surgical procedure should not have to be repeated two or three times a year. Yet, a therapeutic abortion is a surgical procedure and what is to prevent a young mother from re-questing two or three abortions in the same year. Thus, abortions are also found to be fiascoes in that regard. The abortion liberals propose therapeutic abortion as a solution for cases of rape. Rape is very quickly claimed and very lengthily disproved. Unless you simply take the patient's word for it, and if so, how do you handle the hordes of young girls screaming tape! The number of cases would be astronomical. In short, some liberals are advising abortion as a medical solution to a socio-economic problem. But abor-tion creates larger problems and still leaves the original ones of broken homes, repeated rapes and failing finances-all with the unjustified sacrifice of helpless human life in utero. Who dares destroy even potential life, assuming that a certain woman ·would not be a good mother? The right . treatment is not to terminate the pregnancy but to correct the in-adequacy; and better family training and social services would help. 279 . ~ ' : . Furthermore, it is extreme arro-gance for any judge, doctor · or com-mittee to determine whether or not any woman is adequate to be a mother. If it is proper to kill a child who may be abnormal-it is certainly proper to kill a child who is ab-normal. Then, not morals but senti-mental feelings draw the line at seven ·months, or the first cry, or exit from the womb! Harold Rosen, Ph.D. M.C cia te professor of psychiatry Hopkins University School · cine writing in Today's Healt 1965 says: "Whydo women abortions? Reasons vary, r· maior ones would include fan" moil, a disturbed marital relati unstable social environmen unwanted because of poor e( status or the desire to main t family at its present size." '1 SSO-')hns 1edi-\ pril 1uest the · tur-·ship, child omic 1 the Liberalization of the abortion law would quickly lead to the planned, deliberate sacrifice of human life-society would not be bothered with those who might represent a burden · -society would not have to worry about feeding these burdens. The state would no longer be man's ser-vant but man's master! Our lives and our right to life would be based on political prejudgment of our usefulness. National morality has reached such a low point that only after many months of hesitation did police arrest a woman who had been holding "abortion classes" in San Francisco in clear violation of state law. Patricia Maginnis, 38, was charged with con-tributing to the delinquency of minors after several gir Is in her classes were found to be under 21. Miss Maginnis had been providing instructions for a "do it yourself abor-tion," as well as certain instruments to complete the "kit." Her classes of-fered complete discussions of abor-tion, techniques, including advice on dealing with investigators. She is a founder of the Society for Humane Abortion.5 We now need a Founda-tion for Humane Treatment of the Fetus! 280 These reasons indicate family counseling, social aJ chiatric help but hardly treatment by surgery. RathE housing, health care, uniforr mum wages, budget guidar socio-economic planning \ decrease the number of · abortions. l for psy-1 for better mini-' and ·l all l egal In Oslo, in 1957 Per I< ;}stead finished a clinical study of 9· , cases of therapeutic abortion on · 4 pa-tients (two for some p~ ients). Complications included: 5 'l terine ruptures, 6 uterine perfora · )ns, 1 hysterectomy. Other serif ts se-quelae were thrombosis, e . · )olism, pneumonia, lymphangitis, -_,yelitis, cystitis, 4 percent ran fevers and 4 percent hemorrhaged, 3 to 5 per-cent became sterile, 13 percent had post abortion menstrual disorders in-cluding dysmenorrhea, ame orrhea, menorrhagia, frigidity, dyspareunia, vaginal discharge and pain, 15 per-cent admitted to guilt feeling:. 5 per-cent had serious mental distu rbances. Kolstead concluded "Everyon seems to agree that the interruption f preg-nancy as a rule is an unsatisfactory solution of the difficulties to which a woman is exposed by an unwanted pregnancy." LINACRE Q UARTE RLY . If we cannot defend innocent life · 4A t P h' s • 5 c a syc Uit. candinavia 39: 168 1963 m a mother's womb, then no life is Medical World NewsJ Vol. 8 No 11 Mar worth anything! 17, 1967, p. 28. ' · ' · REFERENCES lArey, Leslie Brainerd, Ph.D:, Develop-mental Anatomy> W. B. Saunders Co., 1965 Ed., PP· 100, 105, 127,375 and 380 2lbid p. 100 ' 3!rainer, Jose~h, M.D., Physiologic Founda-hons for Marnage Counseling, C. v. Mosby Co., 1965, p. 148 AUGUST, 1967 ~R. RO~ANOWSKI, a clinical instructor m obstetncs and gynecology, is on the active staff .of Millard Fillmore and Sisters of ~hanty hospitals in Buffalo as clinical as-Sistant. He is a speaker for the Pre-Cana g:~ups of the Diocese of Buffalo and phy-slctan at ~he Family Life Clinic, Examiner for the Tnbunal. 281 .. .. -.• = ..... •'. " ! ~ ' : I 

Abortion: A Fetal Viewpoint

The Linacre QuarterlyVolume 34 | Number 3 Article 43August 1967Abortion: A Fetal ViewpointRichard R. RomanowskiFollow this and additional works at: http://epublications.marquette.edu/lnqRecommended CitationRomanowski, Richard R. (1967) "Abortion: A Fetal Viewpoint," The Linacre Quarterly: Vol. 34 : No. 3 , Article 43.Available at: http://epublications.marquette.edu/lnq/vol34/iss3/43Abortion-. A Fetal Viewpoint RICHARD R. RoMANOWSKI, M.D. People the world over warmed to the wonder of octuplets born to a young Mexican couple on March 10, 1967. This human interest story, carried by major news media, magni-fied the miracle of human birth once more--it mattered not that the sur-. vivors' weight averaged only ten ounces, because humanity is not a matter of mass or size! Although two to three months premature, with arms and legs no larger than adults' fing-ers, these four boys and four girls were not confused with anything else -and were not called anything else but boys or girls even though very tiny, because humanity is not a matter of size or weight. All the world recog-nized them as human. Yet, the pro-ponents of a liberal abortion law would have us scrape out human lives at the tender stage of six months intrauterine age--when the unborn child has been living for six months and weighs more than a pound. Embryologists remind us that all our internal organs are well begun and well formed at eight weeks of intrauterine age. The chief changes thereafter are those of growth and specialization of our tissues in the mother's womb. "Even in the embryo of six weeks the heart exhibits the general external shape and markings that characterize it permanently." 1 And we know that the human heart begins to beat at about three weeks of intrauterine age--that is certainly an essential characteristic of human life, the life that actually begins with 276 the growth of the fertilized ovu . It is an accepted factin both the U I ted States and England that the ur rn child rna y inherit estates by wil n-joy property rights and acquire · p-erty by descent-all these ·l be received upon birth. The unborn child may ale be party to litigation as well as " 'ne-ficiary of trusts and also rna re-cover for prenatal injury. In 49, in a prenatal injury case in h io, Williams versus Marian Rapid r ··an-sit Company Inc., the Ohio Su1 erne Court held that the unborn 'h ild was a "person" within the ffi ( Ding of the Ohio State Constitutim and hence had constitutional 1 Yhts, among them, a recognized rit, ·l t to take action for injuries in utero. For the unborn child, abortio 1 is a cruel infringement upon person. 1 and property rights-the most bCJ ic of which is the right to life itselft Again, our humanity is not l!leas-ured by sizes. We rna ture in a I: sizes, shapes and weights; short, tall ; bese and thin, and the tiniest of human "Davids" have the same rights ,ls the "Goliaths." Or ... in times past had the same rights. The abortion liberals now want the state to sanction, and the doctor to perform, abortions-emptying the uterus of life whenever there is sub-stantial risk that the child might be born with grave physical or mental defects. Thus intrauterine lives would be sacrificed without proof of benefit LlNACRE QuARTERLY to anyone. A risk is only a ris~:.:, ·not actual harm or detriment. Further-more, this liberalization supposes that all defective children are auto-matically inferior and cannot be self-supporting. Yet we all know handi-capped or deformed adults who are charming personalities · and often earn good incomes. Would you have sacrificed the children born just a few years ago with polio? Today we have conquered polio, and can pro-tect against it; should any mother have been given power to eliminate those lives at a tender helpless age? We often hear how rubella or Ger-man measles can cause some 40 per cent of the infected infants to ·be born with congenital defects. Yet many of these defects are minor and can be corrected. The majority of infants subjected to German measles infec-tion in utero are perfect births. It seems more humane to allow all to he delivered and merely execute the imperfect or handicapped. What kind of law would sacrifice a majority of normal children to eliminate a defective minority? But the key question is: When does intrauterine life really begin? Those in favor of liberal abortions say they don't know and that it is not im-portant. But others know; the em-bryologists and physiologists know and the mothers know! Dr. Arey, professor of Ana to my Emeritus of Northwestern University writing in the 1965 edition of his text Develop-mental Anatomy states in his preface: "The unfolding of the developmental story in this book is an account of his own (the reader's) formative COurse." Both Doctors Streeter and Arey refer to specimens as "human AUGUST' 1967 embryos" with a heart and system of blood vessels established through four weeks of intrauterine life. At four months the face has a truly hu-man appearance and individual dif-ferences become recognizable. 2 It is quite evident that the child ten minutes before birth is the same child as ten minutes after birth. If we retreat further, hour after hour and month after month of in-trauterine life, the same holds true-it is the same child. Since it grows and moves long before the mother is aware, it certainly is living and living long before the mother discovers that she is truly "with child." If a three pound premature infant is born at six or seven months, wrap-ped in its amniotic membranes (caul), all strive to preserve its thread of life, regardless of the mother's age, health, marital status or contentions of rape! No one denies that infant's right to life! Who can deny this tiny premature its humanity crying in the incubator? Yet just let that same in-fant, still sealed in amniotic mem-branes, be · three or four months younger, and three ounces instead of three pounds, and the abortion lib-erals would deny its right to life, bas-ing their contentions on the mother's health, marital status and claim of rape (all beside the point). Can the mere accident of time, just a few months time, deprive us of our hu-manity? Anyone who has ever de-livered or ever seen a three pound premature infant, realizes it is indeed an actual human being-so O.K., a three ounce individual is still human. If it is a crime to murder a new-born weighing three or four pounds, it is a crime to murder a child in 277-. · ' utero weighing three ounces who soon grows to three pounds. If the newborn is human in the· delivery room at seven months, it is human in the uterus at 6 and 5 and 4 and 3 and 2 months! Else whence come these humans? the first moment of concepti<" , we have the same obligations and uties to the embryo as to any other b an; and the embryo has the same :ghts as any other human, includi · the right to life, legal counsel ar_ jury What mother does not know, after she misses a few menstrual periods, and then is aware of movement with-in her, that she is indeed "with · child"? About five months later that child is born. The abortion liber-alists ignore the generally recognized medical view that human life begins at conception, and the mother who feels life within her body a f 16 weeks of pregnancy can often count back· and tell her doctor when she con-ceived-she certainly knows when life began! Should an accidental mis-carriage occur at three months, the mother will often ask her doctor, "was it a boy or a girl"? She knows human life was in her, and human life was lost. Only abortionists seem to have trouble telling if such life is human. If we want to determine the species in any other context, we count the chromosome number; the number of chromosomes tells us the species since each species has its own specific num-ber and 46 is the specific number for humans. Embryologists have been doing this for years and they know that human embryos have 46 chro-mosomes. If we had any last doubts about whether a two week's or two month's fetus is human, the number of chromosomes-46-eliminates the doubt and makes it undeniably human! Since the embryo is human from 278 trial. In short if the State, or any _oup wants abortion laws liberaliz€:· and this means abortion on derr ''ld-then the state is obligated to r wide every such embryo on tria ' with judge, jury and public defer ~r ~s well as a public executioner:. ( · ~til we allow the state to take hve: ·.vith-out due process of law? Why should doctors dedicr ~d to the preservation of life, be ac ~d to become executioners? The . lppo-cra tic oath still reads "I will f ve an abortive to no woman" ... Sc 1e at-torneys with no code of ethics ~- - their own and unwilling to adopt -my-would like physicians to at :ndon their famous Ethical Code of -: ntu-ries in the hope that some ~ ~·esent social problems might be allev ·.1ted. Dr. Joseph Trainer, associa · ~ ~ro­fessor and director of health : 'rv1ces at the U ni versi ty of Oregon C edical School says: "There is no poin t what-ever in attempting to hide the need for abortion behind a medic· . skirt. At the present state of scic ce. of medicine there is hardly a conceiV-able justification for interrupting a pregnancy on grounds of preserving the life of the mother."3 We ask: "If there is no justification on grounds of preserving the life .of the mother, how can taking the hfe of the fetus be justified at all"? Doctor Trainer further states: LINACRE QuARTERLY Abortion is a procedure carrying a compli-cated variable risk, often poorly understood by physicians and not at all by the women who seek it. The chief complications from abortion are related to hemorrhage, uterine ·perforation resulting in peritonitis, uterine and tubal infection, and endocrine-based metabolic disorders. These may occur only acutely with quick resolution or . . . they may terminate fatally. In Sweden legal abortions have become · absurd, now they are being done for "fatigue." In one study of 54 such women, 24 were satisfied and grateful for the procedure (abortion), 3 refused to talk about it, 4 said they had guilt feelings which . they re-pressed and 15 were beseiged with major feelings of guilt and remorse while 8 developed frank psychiatric disease. The further dangers of abortion are mentioned by Doctor Muller in the Wqrld Medical Journal (13: 78-80 1966) : Both physical and mental injury may result from legal, as well as illegal abortion, as statistics from the Soviet Union and else-where have shown. Apart from the risk to the patient, there is a risk that the doctor performing large numbers of abortions may himself break down. In countries where abortion is entirely legal, doctors who have undertaken a number of these operations on healthy women ulti-mately have needed psychiatric help them-selves. It seems that for abortions a speeial robot-like constitution. is needed . . . Most tragically, the liberalization of the abortion law would do little toward reducing the number of illegal abortions - as proved in countries allowing abortion for such things as "nervous exhaustion." "The liberal revisions of the AUGUST, 1967 · Swedish law have reduced illegal abortions only slightly. They have made therapeutic abortion available to a group of predominantly married women with an unwanted preg-nancy. However, illegal abortions have increased in the past 25 to 30 years in many countries both those with and without a broad social policy of legal abortions."4 Medically speaking, a well de-signed surgical procedure should not have to be repeated two or three times a year. Yet, a therapeutic abortion is a surgical procedure and what is to prevent a young mother from re-questing two or three abortions in the same year. Thus, abortions are also found to be fiascoes in that regard. The abortion liberals propose therapeutic abortion as a solution for cases of rape. Rape is very quickly claimed and very lengthily disproved. Unless you simply take the patient's word for it, and if so, how do you handle the hordes of young girls screaming tape! The number of cases would be astronomical. In short, some liberals are advising abortion as a medical solution to a socio-economic problem. But abor-tion creates larger problems and still leaves the original ones of broken homes, repeated rapes and failing finances-all with the unjustified sacrifice of helpless human life in utero. Who dares destroy even potential life, assuming that a certain woman ·would not be a good mother? The right . treatment is not to terminate the pregnancy but to correct the in-adequacy; and better family training and social services would help. 279 . ~ ' : . Furthermore, it is extreme arro-gance for any judge, doctor · or com-mittee to determine whether or not any woman is adequate to be a mother. If it is proper to kill a child who may be abnormal-it is certainly proper to kill a child who is ab-normal. Then, not morals but senti-mental feelings draw the line at seven ·months, or the first cry, or exit from the womb! Harold Rosen, Ph.D. M.C cia te professor of psychiatry Hopkins University School · cine writing in Today's Healt 1965 says: "Whydo women abortions? Reasons vary, r· maior ones would include fan" moil, a disturbed marital relati unstable social environmen unwanted because of poor e( status or the desire to main t family at its present size." '1 SSO-')hns 1edi-\ pril 1uest the · tur-·ship, child omic 1 the Liberalization of the abortion law would quickly lead to the planned, deliberate sacrifice of human life-society would not be bothered with those who might represent a burden · -society would not have to worry about feeding these burdens. The state would no longer be man's ser-vant but man's master! Our lives and our right to life would be based on political prejudgment of our usefulness. National morality has reached such a low point that only after many months of hesitation did police arrest a woman who had been holding "abortion classes" in San Francisco in clear violation of state law. Patricia Maginnis, 38, was charged with con-tributing to the delinquency of minors after several gir Is in her classes were found to be under 21. Miss Maginnis had been providing instructions for a "do it yourself abor-tion," as well as certain instruments to complete the "kit." Her classes of-fered complete discussions of abor-tion, techniques, including advice on dealing with investigators. She is a founder of the Society for Humane Abortion.5 We now need a Founda-tion for Humane Treatment of the Fetus! 280 These reasons indicate family counseling, social aJ chiatric help but hardly treatment by surgery. RathE housing, health care, uniforr mum wages, budget guidar socio-economic planning \ decrease the number of · abortions. l for psy-1 for better mini-' and ·l all l egal In Oslo, in 1957 Per I< ;}stead finished a clinical study of 9· , cases of therapeutic abortion on · 4 pa-tients (two for some p~ ients). Complications included: 5 'l terine ruptures, 6 uterine perfora · )ns, 1 hysterectomy. Other serif ts se-quelae were thrombosis, e . · )olism, pneumonia, lymphangitis, -_,yelitis, cystitis, 4 percent ran fevers and 4 percent hemorrhaged, 3 to 5 per-cent became sterile, 13 percent had post abortion menstrual disorders in-cluding dysmenorrhea, ame orrhea, menorrhagia, frigidity, dyspareunia, vaginal discharge and pain, 15 per-cent admitted to guilt feeling:. 5 per-cent had serious mental distu rbances. Kolstead concluded "Everyon seems to agree that the interruption f preg-nancy as a rule is an unsatisfactory solution of the difficulties to which a woman is exposed by an unwanted pregnancy." LINACRE Q UARTE RLY . If we cannot defend innocent life · 4A t P h' s • 5 c a syc Uit. candinavia 39: 168 1963 m a mother's womb, then no life is Medical World NewsJ Vol. 8 No 11 Mar worth anything! 17, 1967, p. 28. ' · ' · REFERENCES lArey, Leslie Brainerd, Ph.D:, Develop-mental Anatomy> W. B. Saunders Co., 1965 Ed., PP· 100, 105, 127,375 and 380 2lbid p. 100 ' 3!rainer, Jose~h, M.D., Physiologic Founda-hons for Marnage Counseling, C. v. Mosby Co., 1965, p. 148 AUGUST, 1967 ~R. RO~ANOWSKI, a clinical instructor m obstetncs and gynecology, is on the active staff .of Millard Fillmore and Sisters of ~hanty hospitals in Buffalo as clinical as-Sistant. He is a speaker for the Pre-Cana g:~ups of the Diocese of Buffalo and phy-slctan at ~he Family Life Clinic, Examiner for the Tnbunal. 281 .. .. -.• = ..... •'. " ! ~ ' : I 

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Abortion: A Fetal Viewpoint

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