OB-GYN to Hillary Clinton: 'No Medical Situation' Requires Late-Term Abortion, C-Section Delivery Is Safer
In response to Hillary Clinton's defense of partial-birth and late-term abortions at Wednesday night's debate, a California obstetrician-gynecologist has reportedly taken to Facebook to decry the claim that third-trimester abortion is necessary to help save the life of the mother.
The Democratic presidential nominee defended her opposition to bans on late-term and partial-birth abortions by arguing that there are cases in which mothers and families are forced to make "the most heartbreaking, painful decisions" because they get news that the woman's health may be in jeopardy.
As Clinton effectively supports a woman's right to abort up until birth, she has defended her opposition to 20-week late-term abortion bans by saying that bans should only be put in place at the "very end" of the third trimester and should allow for health of the mother exceptions.
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After Clinton's remarks Wednesday night, Dr. Lawrence Koning reportedly responded to Clinton's claims in a Facebook post, where he explained that there is "no medical" situation that requires aborting a child.
Koning's Facebook post was reported by Steve Schultz, the founder of of the websites Breaking Christian News and The Elijah List.
According to Schultz, he and Koning graduated together in 1973. When Schultz saw Koning's post on his personal Facebook page, he asked if he could publish the quote online, to which Koning is quoted as responding, "Do it!"
"As an ob/gyn physician for 31 years there is no medical situation that requires aborting / killing the baby in the third trimester to 'save the mother's life,'" Koning reportedly wrote. "Just deliver the baby by c/section and the baby has 95+% survival with readily available NICU care even at 28 weeks. C/section is quicker and safer than partial birth abortion for the mother."
The Christian Post reached out to Koning's office to confirm that he posted the aforementioned comment on his Facebook. However, no response was given before press time.
According to the Charlotte Lozier Institute, the United States is one of seven developed countries where it is legal for elective abortions to occur past 20 weeks of gestation, putting it in the same company as countries like China, North Korea and Vietnam.
Last August, world renowned pediatric neurosurgeon and former presidential candidate Ben Carson asserted that the argument that abortion is used to save a mother's life is "spurious," given the medical technology available today.
"I think when it comes to the case of the life of the mother, you have to look at the individual situation, recognize that's largely a spurious argument," Carson explained on "CBS This Morning." "Because we have advanced so much in medicine these days, that situation rarely occurs."
Also during the debate on Wednesday, Republican nominee Donald Trump claimed that Clinton supported aborting babies in the ninth month of pregnancy and added that she supports ripping babies out of the womb.
In response, another obstetrician gynecologist named Dr. Jen Gunter penned an op-ed published by Vox in which she argued that late-term abortions are extremely rare and that there are no nine month abortions.
While the Center for Disease Control finds that late-term abortions (abortions past 20 weeks) account for only 1.3 percent of the total abortions in America, Gunter states that most late-term abortions in cases where the mother's health is in jeopardy occur before the 24-week mark.
"After 24 weeks, if a pregnant person is sick enough that she needs to deliver for her health, obstetricians either induce labor or perform a C-section, and the baby is attended by the neonatal intensive care unit," Gunter, the author of the book The Preemie Primer, wrote
"Trump would apparently have you believe, and perhaps he believes himself, that in these situations doctors do a delivery and then commit infanticide," Gunter continued. "Health of the mother abortions absolutely do happen — ruptured membranes with an infection or deteriorating heart disease, for example — but they happen before 24 weeks. No OB-GYN is doing third-trimester abortions for the health of the mother. We simply just practice obstetrics and deliver the baby by the most appropriate method."
However, FactCheck.org points out that late-term abortions are not exclusively used in cases with mothers with health risks, pointing to a 2013 study published in the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute's peer-reviewed journal, "Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health."
According to the study, "[i]n many ways, women who had later abortions were similar to those who obtained first-trimester procedures."
