Vice President Kamala Harris claimed in an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle over the weekend that "women will die" if the United States Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade in line with the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization case- the decision for which will be released next year.
Life News said Harris was discussing the case in the interview and expressed concerns about its alleged negative effect by pushing the claims most commonly made by pro-choice advocates in order to frighten people and get their support to continue legalizing abortion on demand.
"I'm very concerned about it. I don't mean to sound alarmist, I mean this: Women will die," Harris said.
Harris went on to elaborate that what she claims is a "fact" because women would have to search for places to have abortions and might end up in places that are not "safe" for them.
"Women will die. In particular, women who don't have economic resources and can't then travel to places or somehow have access to safe reproductive health care, including abortion. And it is not an extreme statement, it is a fact," Harris stressed.
Life News pointed out that what Harris is saying is not a fact since there are exceptions made by states on prohibiting abortion such as cases when a mother's life is at risk. The mother's life and of her baby's are equally recognized by the pro-life movement as important. An example would be during an ectopic pregnancy that, tragically, would be able to save only the mother's life. The goal in such cases then would be to save lives and not to kill them, the pro-life outlet stressed.
Another reason why Harris' statements are but lies is based on statistical data that show only a few women died from abortions within the decade before 1973, which is when the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Roe v. Wade. The data shows that the biggest factor in the drop of maternal deaths--as against claims of the pro-choice advocates such as the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists of 5,000 women dying annually before 1973--is the use of antibiotics and not legalized abortions. This was confirmed by The Washington Post's fact checker.
The Washington Post presented that the thousands of women who died in the 1920s and 1930s were mostly caused by miscarriages and elective abortions but this changed after antibiotics became widely available, leading to a sharp decline in maternal deaths.
Even Planned Parenthood Medical Director Dr. Mary Steichen Calderone, in a commentary published in the American Journal of Public Health in 1959, stressed that "abortion is no longer a dangerous procedure" citing the presence of antibiotics. Calderone also pointed out the safety of illegal abortions at that time since they were done not by "back alley abortionists" but by "trained physicians."
Ironically, data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control reveal that women actually die from legal abortions - with a recorded 450 for the period between 1973 to 2018. This data is, however, not updated since not all states report the number of abortions within their jurisdiction.
These are but some of the actual evidence that prove Harris' claims are false and had no basis. Yet despite these, Harris continues with her claims such as via a tweet she made last week that abortion is a "constitutional right." Harris made this statement as a reaction to the United States Supreme Court ruling on Friday that the Texas Heartbeat Act will remain in effect while litigation continues in the lower courts.
"Let me be clear: We will continue to fight for the constitutional right of all women to make decisions about their own bodies," Harris announced in Twitter on Saturday, December 11.
On the contrary, United States 5th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge James Ho underscored in May that the "right to an abortion" is not mentioned nor indicated in the Constitution. Abortion never was a part of the rights given to citizens in the Constitution.
"Nothing in the text or original understanding of the Constitution established a right to an abortion. Rather, what distinguishes abortion from other matters of health care policy in America--and uniquely removes abortion police from the democratic process established by our Founders--is Supreme Court precedent," Ho said.
