We are men of action; lies do not become us. -William Goldman
LeRoy Carhart: Trust women, but don’t trust him.
And yet, this quote must apply only to men who act with courage and compassion – men who can be proud of the actions they take. Men whose actions protect the innocent, uphold the weak, and defend the helpless. Apparently, men whose actions add up to calculated, callous murder believe that lies do become them.
In Live Action’s latest Inhuman video release, LeRoy Carhart was caught in a string of lies. Perhaps the most monstrous – in proportion, anyway – was his lie about the U.S. maternal death rate.
In an effort to convince the woman that carrying her baby to term was far more dangerous than having a late-term abortion, Carhart blatantly lied about how many women die during pregnancy every year:
Dr. Carhart: I mean the United States, in the last several years, it averages between 15 and 18 women die out of every 1,000 from being pregnant.
Carhart went on to tell the woman that these falsified numbers were equivalent to 16% of women dying from pregnancy. (In reality, 16 women out of every 1,000 is equal to 1.6%, still a hugely untrue statistic.)
Any sensible adult in the United States could easily consider how many pregnant women he or she has encountered and how many of them have died. It’s clear – just from common sense and basic observations – that Carhart’s pulling out of thin air these numbers. But just how wrong is he?
In the summer of 2012, the Huffington Post released an infographic, based on numbers from the Center for Disease Control, picturing the maternal death rate in the U.S.
The 2010 death rate? Twelve point seven women per 100,000. Even the 2006 number, which was slightly higher, was 13.3 women per 100,000 live births. The 2010 number equals a 0.0127% death rate.
The World Health Organization’s numbers from 2008 were higher than U.S. reported numbers, as the WHO put the U.S. maternal mortality rate at 24 per 100,000 live births – still nowhere near Carhart’s 15-18 per 1,000. (Incidentally, the WHO defines maternal mortality rates to include deaths from abortion.) In fact, Carhart’s self-made numbers, if true, would put the U.S. below Afghanistan – the worst-ranked country in the world in 2008 – for maternal mortality.
Carhart’s not even close. This isn’t a matter of fudging the facts or misrepresenting fluid statistics. This is a plain, out-and-out, blatant – and monstrous – lie. And these are the kind of lies that abortionists tell women to scare them into thinking that childbirth is so, so super-scary and dangerous while they claim that abortion is so, so super-safe and uncomplicated.
Add all this to the distorted speech Carhart gave the investigator when she questioned whether Carhart would be certain to get all the pieces of the baby – specifically her baby’s hand – out of her during the abortion. Carhart attempted to assure her that he would remove all the pieces, and then said:
But there are risks, you know, with abortion, and they are the exact same risks that there are with being pregnant and delivering, I mean, people die from being pregnant, people die from anesthesia being pregnant, uh people die from having abortions, but it’s a lot more rare than with delivery.
Okay, excuse me just one minute. Once again, Carhart’s telling a monstrous lie. There are quite a few risks that are very specific to abortion that a woman who is pregnant and delivering her child will not encounter. Perhaps chief among these risks is exactly what the woman is asking – body parts of torn apart babies being left inside.
When was the last time you heard about a baby being delivered naturally in pieces? “Oh yes, your beautiful daughter is here! Well, most of her, that is. Let us go inside and be sure to pull out her hand that she left behind.” Last time I checked, babies aren’t born in pieces. That’s a result of abortion; it’s a risk peculiar to abortion. And if Carhart were an honest man, he would not claim that abortion has the “exact same risks” as “being pregnant and delivering.”
I admit, though, it is a bit much to ask an admitted killer to be honest about his business…
