In 1998 33 year-old LouAnne Herron was carrying her third baby. Her husband, who didn�t know about the baby, had just left her and she wanted an abortion. At the A-Z clinic in Phoenix Herron found out she was 26 weeks along. An abortion after 24 weeks is illegal in the state of Arizona. The clinic went ahead with the abortion anyway. Herron did not leave the clinic April 17, 1998. Not on her own.
In 2000 the deaths of 11 women were connected with legal abortion. Complications in an abortion can cause a woman to bleed to death, slowly and agonizingly. Counting deaths caused by abortion is difficult, but 11 were reported.
January 8, 2004 a young woman, six months pregnant, died of complications from a second trimester abortion. Though the girl was only 15, the clinic did not ask for parental permission. Another woman, 18 this time, died seven weeks pregnant from septic shock caused by the chemical abortion mifepristone or RU-486. She received the abortion from a Planned Parenthood affiliate. An investigation of this was launched by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
The side of the debate arguing for abortion points to the mother�s health saying �She could die from giving birth!� But what they don�t tell you is the risk women take in having their babies aborted. Things like septic shock, respiratory arrest, having their heart stop, or bleeding to death because their uterus was punctured. I have here, with me, the names of 11 women and teenage girls who died because they were not informed of the risks of abortion. Do you want their names? Their ages? The difficult, even dreadful way they died? Do you want to know? Probably not. Reading some of the things I did while doing my research for this speech should stop many sensible women from getting an abortion.
LouAnne Herron bled to death in the recovery room of the A-Z clinic, suffering from a perforated uterus, while her doctor ate his lunch. When Dr. John Biskind was informed of what was taking place in the recovery room, he told the nurse to leave him be. In May 2001 Biskind was convicted of manslaughter. And this wasn�t the last time Biskind made that mistake. Before Herron�s death became public knowledge, the doctor tried to abort a baby of a 17 year old mother that was supposedly 23 weeks along, but was in reality 37 weeks. The baby survived despite a skull fracture and lacerations. The little girl was eventually adopted.
Many people are tired of hearing Christians like myself, Bible-thumpers some would say, preach about how abortion is morally wrong. But in today�s society that argument doesn�t seem to be enough. Abortion is a risk, even with a doctor who is responsible, unlike Biskind. There are probably many unreported cases of death due to abortion out there. There are rarely, if ever, any reasons why an abortion, early, late, partial-birth or otherwise, are a better choice than natural or C-section birth and adoption.