'Abundant data' shows elective induced abortion is not 'health care,' says OB-GYN

(OSV News) -- Abortion, which intentionally ends the life of an unborn child, is not health care, according to a new publication by Dr. Ingrid Skop, an board-certified OB-GYN with more than 30 years of experience.

"Abundant data indicates that elective induced abortion fails to fulfill the criteria to be considered health care and is certainly not the type of medical intervention for which any health care professionals should advocate," the paper by Skop, vice president and director of medical affairs for the Charlotte Lozier Institute, reads. "Rather, abortion is the intentional ending of an unborn child's life that uses medical drugs and procedures to kill rather than heal, often harming his or her mother in the process."

The 25-page paper titled "Is Induced Abortion Health Care?" was published Aug. 7 by Charlotte Lozier, the research education institute of the national pro-life group Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America. While performing a critical examination of whether abortion fits under the classification of health care, Skop finds that abortion not only fails the principles of medical ethics toward the unborn child but also meets none of the criteria established by the American Medical Association for identifying health care that physicians should support.

"Since the Dobbs decision, we've seen increasingly that abortion advocates are trying to promote abortion as essential medical care," Skop told OSV News, referring to the Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe v. Wade, the court's 1973 ruling that previously legalized abortion nationwide. "What we see, however, is that more than 95% of abortions are in a healthy mom on a healthy baby."

The paper reviews the claims of medical organizations, such as the American
College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, that consider abortion "health care." After defining "abortion" and "health care," it explores questions including whether abortion falls under "evidence-based health care"; whether it meets the standards of medical ethics; and whether women seeking abortion give truly informed consent.

Her paper, Skop told OSV News, seeks to expose the misinformation that calls abortion "essential medical care" in two ways: by looking at what evidence-based medicine is and by informing the American public about the poor quality of the data relied on by abortion studies in the United States.

For evidence-based medicine, particularly in this case, she said that there must be an illness or disease -- and emphasized that, in most cases, there is no illness or disease being treated by abortion. As far as the data, she added, there are no mandates on a federal level requiring the reporting of the number of abortions performed or the complications or deaths associated with them.

"Many times when we're identifying complications and deaths, we're only finding the tip of the iceberg," she said. "We need better data as well, if we're going to try to make any type of a scientific conclusion about abortion."

The paper defines induced abortion as "an action taken to terminate a pregnancy with the intent that the unborn child die and that a live birth does not result."

"We've seen a lot of confusion because the layman's term 'abortion' is what we know in medicine as an 'induced abortion,'" Skop told OSV News.

She contrasted it with a miscarriage, which medical professionals call a "spontaneous abortion." While a doctor might use the same procedure for a miscarriage that is used in an abortion, the baby has already died in a miscarriage.

In her paper, Skop makes the case that the continuation of a baby's life, rather than his or her destruction in abortion, is health care.

"Obstetrics is the medical field concerned with the care and delivery of pregnant women," the paper reads. "The preservation and maintenance of pregnancy, along with prenatal care and delivery of babies, are forms of health care based on this definition."

"Disrupting the normal physiological process of pregnancy and ending an unborn human's life, at least in cases of elective abortions (i.e., the vast majority), is thus the antithesis of health care for pregnant women," it concludes, adding that abortion also presents a variety of health risks for women.

Citing a previous report from the Charlotte Lozier Institute, the paper states that nearly 96% of abortions in the United States "are estimated to be performed for non-medical, preferential reasons such as financial and social indications, or for unspecified reasons."

Even in the other cases, abortion is not necessary, Skop said. She revealed that she has cared for women suffering from severe pregnancy complications where she needed to end the pregnancy, or separate the woman from her unborn child. But, Skop clarified, that's different from abortion.

Rather than directly end an unborn child's life by abortion, she induced labor and delivered him or her, Skop said.

"Most of the time when that intervention is needed, it is after the baby can survive (being) separated from his mother," she said. "But even if he's too young or too sick and he does not survive, my intent in that action was not to end his life. My intent was to protect his mother."

However you define it, she added, every state allows a doctor to perform that kind of intervention. She revealed that she, together with an attorney, have looked at the law in every state with pro-life protections that limit or restrict abortion and found that each one allows an exception permitting an abortion (or separation, in this case) if it is needed to protect a woman's life.

Skop's main goal with the paper, she said, is "to get people to think more critically" and to investigate for themselves the claims made by those who support abortion.

"We need to start with the very first precept of medicine: What is the illness that we're treating? What is the disease?" she said. "Pregnancy is a normal physiologic event in a healthy woman's life."

"If we're treating social and financial problems," she concluded, "surely we can do so in a better way than by ending human life."