Ad campaign demolishes myth of 'therapeutic abortion' in Ireland

Rome, Italy, Jun 11, 2010 / 16:16 pm

The Irish pro-life group Youth Defence has launched a newspaper ad campaign to counter implications by pro-abortion groups that there is no moral difference between the treatment for an ectopic pregnancy and direct abortion.

According to Lifesitenews.com, the group has taken out ads in all of the country’s major newspapers that read in part,  “Abortion never saves a mother’s life – it just kills a baby.”  “The ad quotes from “Rene” who describes the loss of her unborn child, who implanted in her fallopian tube, as “heartbreaking.”
 
“Now I hear pro-abortion campaigners claiming that treatment for an ectopic pregnancy is abortion," she says. "That’s absolutely untrue – and it’s so wrong to scare women by claiming that necessary medical treatments are abortions. I didn’t want my baby to die. And it hurts to see his death used to push for abortion.”

“In Ireland abortion is illegal and, according to the UN, we are the safest country in the world for a woman to have a baby. Therefore, in cases such as an ectopic pregnancy or cancer of the uterus, doctors always try to treat the mothers—even if the treatment has as a consequence the un-intentional death of their babies,” the ad says.

The ads also feature comments from Prof. John Bonner, a former head of the Institute of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, who told a Dáil Committee in 2000: “It would never cross an obstetrician’s mind that intervening in a case of pre-eclampsia, cancer of the cervix or ectopic pregnancy is abortion.”