{"id":168310,"date":"2017-07-01T16:54:07","date_gmt":"2017-07-01T20:54:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=168310"},"modified":"2017-07-01T20:01:06","modified_gmt":"2017-07-02T00:01:06","slug":"hack-pro-abortion-doctor-pens-new-contender-shoddiest-abortion-apologia-ever","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/hack-pro-abortion-doctor-pens-new-contender-shoddiest-abortion-apologia-ever\/","title":{"rendered":"Abortionist pens op-ed insisting abortion is ‘health care’ — but fails to prove her case"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Leah Torres, an abortionist known for some of the most rabid<\/a> and dishonest<\/a> pro-abortion histrionics you\u2019ll find anywhere, has a new op-ed<\/a> at Self.com in which she petulantly declares, \u201cAbortion Is Health Care\u2014End of Story.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alas, if this really was the story\u2019s final chapter, then Torres left in more plot holes than a Michael Bay script.<\/p>\n

Pregnancy is a medical condition. Call it what you will\u2014miracle, blessing, burden, number one fear\u2014it\u2019s a health condition for which people seek medical and\/or health care. But people, and our government, treat it like some special exception. People often say to me, \u201cIt\u2019s not a disease, it\u2019s a natural part of life.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It\u2019s not a good sign when your very first paragraph sets the stage with a straw-man. Nobody denies that pregnancy is a medical condition; what we deny is that it\u2019s a disease<\/em>, for which abortion<\/a> would possibly constitute a cure. Yes, pregnancy can have negative health effects, but it also has positive ones<\/a>, and ultimately \u201cdisease\u201d has a real definition<\/a>: it\u2019s a \u201cdisorder of structure or function,\u201d not a biological process functioning correctly. (Say, isn\u2019t Torres\u2019s side always telling us what sticklers they are for accurate terminology?)<\/p>\n

In fact, a more critical thinker might stop to wonder if, just maybe, abortion\u2019s litany of medical dangers<\/a> signifies that, as the violent interruption of one of human biology\u2019s most important functions, it\u2019s the very opposite of a cure.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a reason she\u2019s misusing a simple medical term, of course: to set up the argument that it\u2019s \u201creproductive coercion\u201d for insurance and\/or government to cover prenatal care but not \u201cabortion care.\u201d Even I was genuinely surprised by an analogy this bad:<\/p>\n

If you need surgery, insurance doesn\u2019t merely reimburse for the removal of the appendix (for example) and then forego reimbursement for the incision to open the body and the stitches to close it up. Who would stand for such an a la carte insurance plan? Everyone in this country would, apparently. We should vote intelligently, but we don\u2019t.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Covering multiple steps of the same treatment is the same as covering two different procedures? This argument is either incompetent or just lazy… maybe because the target audience isn\u2019t looking for a logical argument anyway.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s say your sister, Rose, has high blood pressure and she needs treatment [\u2026] imagine that our legal system, health care system, and value system make it relatively easy and affordable to receive Treatment A, and makes Treatment B expensive and difficult\u2014or impossible\u2014to get. Rose\u2019s health and life background are such that Treatment A carries much more risk to her wellbeing than Treatment B. The government has passed laws ensuring that taxpayer funds go toward paying for Treatment A, but it is against the law<\/a> for virtually any to go toward Treatment B. (Never mind that Treatment B saves taxpayers a lot of money<\/a>.)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Such a situation would indeed be awful. It\u2019s not the situation abortion-seekers find themselves in, though, because childbirth actually doesn’t<\/a> \u201ccarr[y] much more risk to her wellbeing than\u201d abortion. (As for the link claiming that Planned Parenthood funding is a money-saver, I think we\u2019ll wait until some studies not <\/em>authored by Planned Parenthood’s close associates<\/a> concur.) More importantly, blood pressure treatment doesn\u2019t kill any third parties.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

With such an abysmal grasp of the points that should be right in her own profession\u2019s wheelhouse, it\u2019s no surprise that Torres absolutely flunks when venturing beyond it. Because abortion \u201cfulfills your right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,\u201d she writes, \u201cIt seems crystal clear that this kind of reproductive coercion is unconstitutional.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sure. Never mind that every scrap of historical evidence and context we have<\/a> tells us the Constitution\u2019s guaranteed right to life (by the way, “life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness” is a phrase from the Declaration of Independence, not the Constitution) was meant to apply before birth, or that scores of legal experts<\/a> who agree with you that abortion should be legal<\/em> can find no evidence that the Constitution requires it to be legal.<\/p>\n

Before anyone chimes in with \u201cBut what about the baby\u2019s rights?\u201d I will first direct you to a lovely article<\/a> by Andrea Grimes regarding appropriate language (zygote\/embryo\/fetus\/etc.) and why it matters.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Grimes is another honesty<\/a>–challenged<\/a> abortion advocate<\/a>, but okay, we\u2019ll bite. Sure enough, the Rewire piece declares that \u201cbaby\u201d is an emotionally manipulative term, \u201cnot a medical term\u201d\u2026 but at no point explains how it\u2019s inaccurate in any way. Grimes cites no medical source for this claim whatsoever (other than Torres herself, laughably enough).<\/p>\n

It\u2019s just as well\u2014a truthful treatment of the subject would have required Grimes to explain why Mayo Clinic, Johns Hopkins, and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services all use “baby” to describe the preborn<\/a>; why Collins English Dictionary<\/a>, American Heritage Dictionary<\/a>, Random House Kernerman Webster’s College Dictionary<\/a>, Macmillan Dictionary<\/a>, and Vocabulary.com<\/a> all expressly include the preborn in their definitions of \u201cbaby\u201d; or why the definitions of \u201cbaby\u201d in Merriam-Webster<\/a>, Cambridge Dictionary<\/a>, and Oxford Dictionaries<\/a> are broad enough to include the preborn.<\/p>\n

So please, let\u2019s not pretend Torres and Grimes dislike calling preborn babies \u201cbabies\u201d for any better reason than they know full well how bad it sounds to admit what they do to babies. An example can be found in former abortionist Dr. Anthony Levatino’s description of the most common second trimester abortion procedure below:<\/p>\n