Death and near deaths do occur with every type abortion procedure. As the vast majority of abortions are done for social reasons, deaths and near deaths that do occur from the operation are especially tragic. All members of the medical profession, abortion counselors and social workers should be kept appraised of the diversity of dangers inherent in the abortion procedure. A plea is made for the accurate reporting of all legal abortion deaths and near deaths. REFERENCES 1. Berger GS, Trietze C, Pakter J, et al: Maternal Mortality Associated with Legal Abortion in New York State: July 1, 1970-June 30, 1972. Obstetrics-Gynecology 43: 315-326, 1974 2. Lowensohn RI, Hibbard LT: Laceration of the Ascending Branch of the Uterine Artery: A Complication of Therapeutic Abortion. Am J Obst & Gynec Vol 118 #1: 36-38, 1974 3. Munsick RA: Air Embolism and Maternal Death from Therapeutic Abortion: Obstetrics and Gynecology 39: 5: 688-690, 1972 4. Morrison JC, Flournoy H, Hutchins L, et al: Hypertonic Saline-Induced Abortion Complicated by Consumption Coagulopathy. Southern Medical Journal 66: 561-562, 1973 5. Stewart GK, Goldstein, P: Medical and Surgical Complications of Therapeutic Abortions. Obstetrics-Gynecology 40: 539–548, 1972 6. Berger GS, Tyler CW, Harrod EK: Maternal Deaths Associated with Cervical Block Anesthesia. Am J Ob Gyn 118: 1142–1143, 1974 7. Jewett JF, Committee on Maternal Welfare Report: New England J Med 288: 47-48, 1973 8. Jewett JF, Committee on Maternal Welfare Report: New England J Med 290: 340-341, 1974 9. Gangai, MP: An Unusual Surgical Injury to the Ureter. J Urology 109: 32, 1973 10. Duenholter JH, Gant NF, Complications Following Prostaglandin FA— Induced Mid Trimester Abortion. Obstetrics-Gynecology 46: 247-250, 1975 STATEMENT OF ALEX BARNO, M.D., MINNEAPOLIS, MINN. My name is Alex Barno, M.D. I have been a physician for 30 years and an Obstetrician and Gynecologist from Minneapolis, Minnesota, for the past 28 years. I am a Clinical Professor in Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Minnesota School of Medicine, a past President of the Minnesota Obstetrical and Gynecological Society, a member of the Central Association of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, Chairman of the Minnesota Maternal Mortality Committee of the State Medical Association, and chairman of the Committee on Obstetrics, Gynecology and Maternal Health of the State Medical Association, and a member of the Minnesota Cervical Cancer Mortality Committee. I am a non-Catholic physician. I am here today in favor of the Human Life Amendment. These are my comments, and they do not represent in any official capacity any of the aforementioned organizations. My presentation will be in two parts-some data from the Minnesota Mortality Study, which I believe will be of interest to you, and some general remarks. Santayana stated that "those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it." The pro-abortionists flooded the American public with scare tactics before the Supreme Court decision of January 20, 1973, claiming that 5,000 to 10,000 women were dying annually in the United States as a result of induced abortions. Statistics from the Minnesota Maternal Mortality Study suggest that these figures were grossly exaggerated. This is a Clinical Research Study sponsored by the Minnesota State Medical Association, the Minnesota State Department of Health and the Minnesota Obstetrical and Gynecological Society. It has been continuous since 1950-I have been involved with the study since its beginning. Every maternal death in the State of Minnesota is studied in detail by an OB-Gyn specialist field worker-going to the hospital, doctor's office, etc., and obtaining firsthand all the information. Final decisions are then made at periodic meetings of the Committee as a whole, consisting of 23 physicians. I have presented to you data (Tables I through IX) from this Study for a 24 year period, 1950 through 1973, regarding rates, a breakdown of the causes of death, the out-of-wedlock pregnancy situation, the induced abortions, and the suicides in pregnancy. During this 24 year period under study, 840 maternal deaths occurred in Minnesota among 1,763,702 live births. Only 31 of these deaths were induced abortion deaths or 1.3 per year-28 illegal, or 1.2 per year, two therapeutic (for medical reasons) and one legal in 1973 (Table IX). Automobile accidents (48) are killing more pregnant patients in Minnesota than induced abortions (31), or suicide (22), yet this does not create a furor as do the other two. The pattern in our state is the same as it has been-even after the latter part of the 1960's when some states began liberalizing their abortion laws and Minnesota residents could go out of state for abortions. If the figures of 5,000 to 10,000 per year were true, Minnesota should have contributed 100 to 200 illegal abortion deaths per year, yet we had only 1.2 per year. That figure of 5,000 to 10,000 I think was picked out of a Houdini hat. Legalizing abortion doesn't have much to do with the decrease in Maternal Mortality rates. The rates were decreasing before liberalization of the abortion laws. While there seems to have been a decrease in the number of illegal abortion deaths in some states such as New York, the number of legal abortion deaths has replaced those gains. There are many factors to account for the decrease in Maternal Mortality Rates-decrease in our birth rate, better training of physicians, better hospital organization of obstetrical care, better anesthesia, availability of blood, antibiotics, better nurses, etc., etc. In our state, the Study itself was a factor— quality control, peer review-disseminating the knowledge regarding the problems and their correction-education. As our modalities of care have improved, the medical indications for therapeutic abortion have dwindled to almost nothing. Before the Supreme Court decision of January 20, 1973, the pro-abortionists kept parroting that if we didn't abort these women, they would kill themselves. About 75-85% of the abortions were done on the bases of psychiatric indication, the principal criterion being the likelihood of suicide. Again, however, data from the Minnesota Study indicates that this fear was unfounded. There were only 22 suicides, one per 80,168 live births, or less than one per year. Sixteen of these occurred postpartum and only six with the child in utero. Pregnant patients commit suicide about six times less frequently than non-pregnant women of the same age group. No one has ever shown that aborting a woman cures psychiatric disease. The first nine tables of data I have presented to you are an updating of a scientific paper of mine which was published in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology in 1967. Some pertinent data is presented to you in Tables X, XI and XII. Had we relied on Death Certificate Information alone, we would have missed 32% of the total maternal deaths and 18% of the obstetrical deaths (where pregnancy played a causative role) since pregnancy or the postpartum state was not mentioned on the death certificate. These additional deaths were discovered through Committee efforts setting up the study in a prospective fashion. (The mechanics of this is included in the Appendix.) Analyzing the maternal death certificates with regard to the cause of death-we found that 19% were incorrectthere was no correlation between the cause of death listed and that determined by the Committee. So with 19% incorrect to begin with as to the cause of death, and 18% of the obstetrical deaths missed by relying on death certificate information alone, one wonders about the reliability of some of the biometric information we are being fed today. Some of this data is inaccurate because they are making calculations regarding data which is inaccurate to begin with. Now for the second part of my presentation. The abortion issue is the most divisive issue that has ever faced Medicine. It has produced a dichotomy, a schism, a polarization of a great and honorable profession on the local, state, national and international level, especially within the discipline of Obstetrics and Gynecology-abortionists in one camp and pro-life physicians in another. Our role as physicians is to protect and preserve life. The physician is the guardian of life. We are doing heart transplants, kidney transplants, kidney dialyses, etc., etc., in order to save lives. Only in the discipline of Obstetrics and Gynecology are we asked to destroy a life. This I have done three times in 28 years, and I will do it again when the life of the mother is jeopardized, but this is indicated very, very rarely in modern day medicine. The unborn child is a life, and its rights to be born should be protected. This wanton destruction of human beings by the thousands is a debasement, a prostitution of the art and science of medicine. Dr. Sigmund Freud (the eminent psychiatrist) said, “We may suppose that the final aim of the destructive instinct is to reduce living things to an inorganic state. For this reason, we call it the death instinct." If I had to coin one word to try to express everything regarding this indecent concept, it would be this-it is a phantasmagoria. You have been bombarded with figures that abortion on demand has decreased the infant death rate. Whai a paradox-the more that are destroyed, the less there will be available for the live birth status for the statisics for perinatal mortality. This is a schizophrenia. These destroyed babies should rightly be included in the statistics as iatrogenic deaths-doctor produced. You also have been bombarded with the concept that doctor produced abortions are much safer regarding the possibility of maternal death than the "back alley abortionists." In a recent article from the Bulletin, New York Academy of Medicine, 49: 804, 1973, entitled "Impact of the Liberalized Abortion Law in New York City on Deaths Associated with Pregnancy: A Two-Year Experience" by Pakter, O'Hare, Helpern, and Nelson, they reported 29 maternal deaths-16 associated with legal and 13 with illegal abortions. It seems that the doctors killed more women than the so-called "back alley abortionists." The professional expertise of the "back alley abortionists" seems to have been underestimated. Making abortion available to the individual does not eliminate illegal abortions. This has been shown to be true in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary. It would seem to me that the answer to this abortion controversy is pregnancy prevention instead of pregnancy destruction. There is an old saying, "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." Life is a precious commodity as those of us who have it, realize. Birth control is a reality in today's world-the "pill", the intrauterine device, the diaphragm, the contraception jellies, etc., with vasectomy in the male and tubal ligation in the female, as is desired. In closing I would like to quote Camus. This is from a publication by Greg A. Gehred, M.D., Rochester, New York. Camus said in "Letters to a German Friend": "I continue to believe that the world has no ultimate meaning. But I know that something in it has meaning, and that is man, because he is the only creature to insist on having one. This world has at least the truth of man, and our task is to provide its justification against fate itself. "And it has no justification but man; hence he must be saved if we want to save the ideas we have of life. With your scornful smile, you will ask me, 'What do you mean by saving man?' And with all my being, I shout to you that I mean not mutilating him." If life has any intrinsic value then abortion is just such mutilation. APPENDIX Before the study was begun, it was outlined in our state medical journal, Minnesota Medicine. Each doctor was notified by letter. Each hospital administrator and chief of staff of every hospital in the state was also notified by letter. The cross-matching technique has been utilized. The death certificates of all women ages 15 through 45 are cross checked against any births or stillbirths. . . additional cases are discovered since pregnancy or the postpartum state was not mentioned on the death certificate. Additional cases were discovered through notification by physicians, nurses, social workers, medical students, hospital record room librarians and newspapers. In addition the State Department of Health issued a ruling to all hospitals that a maternal death should be reported within three days of occurrence. |