To read the newly proposed state initiative banning late-term abortions, you’d think there was an epidemic of evil in Colorado. You’d think heartless, money-grubbing doctors were killing healthy babies by digging them out of greedy, self-absorbed women.
Why else would voters be asked to make it a felony for a doctor to perform an abortion on a “viable fetus”?
You don’t revise the law unless there’s a serious, persistent crisis that you can’t address any other way.
So as holier-than-you abortion foes tell voters they must turn physicians into criminals and take away women’s control over their bodies, look for the problem.
There is no epidemic of late-term abortions here. In 2002, doctors performed 7,757 legal abortions in Colorado, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Just 184 of those involved women who were more than 20 weeks pregnant. No evidence exists that the few late-term abortions that took place were matters of convenience.
In fact, the experience is opposite.
“For the most part, late-term abortions deal with the mother’s health or abnormal babies,” said Dr. William Hay, a professor of pediatrics and neonatology at the University of Colorado. “Seldom does a normal baby have its life ended after 24 weeks. We just don’t see it.”
Hay has saved premature babies for more than three decades. But he does not believe in letting voters or politicians dictate the practice of medicine.
“I would hesitate to have the legislature set grounds for what’s normal,” Hay said. “That’s a moving target.”
The medical standard for a “viable fetus” is “functionally 24 weeks,” said Hay. But babies born that soon have a 50 percent chance of serious developmental disorders that deny them what most of us consider a normal life. Some babies can be kept alive at 22 weeks, Hay added, but they are more severely afflicted.
The proposed initiative seems vague about when a crime occurs, said Dr. Donald Aptekar, a past president of the Colorado Gynecology and Obstetrics Society. This produces a “chilling effect” where doctors are afraid to perform abortions, even when a fetus cannot survive in anything but a vegetative state. Quality-of-life issues are important, Aptekar said.
They’re especially important because the people pushing this initiative are not going to be available 24-7 to help critically disabled kids, even as they force those children to be born. Abortion foes also do not demand a national health-insurance program to pay for care and, if necessary, lifelong institutionalization.
“When you have vague definitions of viability, (doctors will) err on the side of not doing what they might think is in the best interest of patients,” said Dr. Stephanie Teal, director of family planning at the University of Colorado medical school. The anti-abortion initiative “implies that doctors can’t be trusted to make decisions with their patients. It says that something sneaky’s going on that the people of Colorado don’t know about.”
Statistics prove there isn’t.
Dr. Michael Hall hates abortion. He believes in life at conception. He’s seen what he considers “viable fetuses” as young as nine weeks in utero. But Hall, an Englewood obstetrician and gynecologist, is adamant about not criminally pursuing doctors who perform abortions.
Almost no doctors do abortions after 20 weeks, Hall said. Still, until the Supreme Court overturns the decision that established a woman’s right to choose, it should not be a crime, he said.
“My job is to decide what’s viable for my patients and how to care for them,” Hall said. The state shouldn’t charge doctors with felonies for doing their jobs.
That, said Aptekar, is what the proposed anti-abortion initiative will do. As president of the gynecology and obstetric society, Aptekar used to go to the legislature to debate abortion restrictions.
“Each year,” he said, “there would be allegations of substandard care. We’d say, ‘Where’s the problem? Show us.”‘
There’s the critical flaw for the abortion foes. Except for a few isolated examples, they can’t.
Jim Spencer’s column appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday. He can be reached at 303-820-1771 or jspencer@denverpost.com.
