It seems to be happening more and more frequently that in my research I uncover quotes from pro-choice leaders that are completely astonishing. For example, pro-life writer George Grant quoted Molly Yard, then president of the pro-abortion group the National Organization for Women, explaining how important it was for women to have access to the abortion pill.
The abortion pill, then called RU-486, had not yet been approved in the United States and pro-choicers were pressuring the FDA to approve its use for American women. A number of pro-lifers have written about how the FDA may have rushed the approval of the abortion pill for political reasons; pro-choicers dispute this. But in the words of Molly Yard, the abortion pill is:
“…[Perhaps even] the most significant medical advance in human history and the symbol of a brighter future for women everywhere.”
This quote appeared in the New York Observer on May 16, 1991, and is cited in George Grant, Grand Illusions: the Legacy of Planned Parenthood (Franklin, Tennessee: Adroit Press, 1988, 1992) page 35.
Molly Yard’s statement shows how out of touch with reality pro-choice leaders have historically been. To think that the abortion pill, which kills babies (and sometimes women) is the greatest medical advance in human history is incredibly skewed thinking.
Think about what she has said here for a moment. She is claiming that the abortion pill is more valuable than the discovery of antibiotics, which has saved hundreds of millions of lives. It is greater than cutting edge cancer treatments that prolong life and send patients into remission. It is greater than the elimination of smallpox, greater than the creation of vaccines which protect children from dangerous illnesses, greater than the advances in mental health care that has allowed mentally ill people to live independent lives rather than being institutionalized. Greater than medical treatment that allows AIDS patients to live longer.
Her statement is amazing. Instead of all these advances, she says the greatest medical advance in human history is a pill that that kills babies and makes many women suffer horribly. Just read Abby Johnson’s story of her abortion by pill. Johnson was then the director of a Planned Parenthood clinic. She supported abortion, yet her suffering after taking the abortion pill was so extreme that afterwards she went to great lengths to avoid prescribing women the pill, instead encouraging them to get surgical abortions.
And Abby’s experience is not a rare one. You can read other horror stories from women who took the abortion pill here.
If all this wasn’t enough, the abortion pill has allowed for something that would never have been possible otherwise – the opportunity for men to trick their pregnant girlfriends or wives into aborting their babies. Babies that the women want, but the men in their lives do not. Cases such as this one were only made possible by the existence of an abortion pill.
So the abortion pill – is it really the greatest medical advance of history? Or is this a ridiculous statement by a fanatic who is obsessed with abortion?
