This month Planned Parenthood announced that it would stop providing abortion services at seven of its Arizona clinics, leaving only three facilities to perform the procedure in the entire state.
The announcement comes as a result of state legislation passed both this year and in 2009 regulating abortion providers.
The new regulations must be pretty severe to cause Planned Parenthood to take such drastic measures, right? Not really.
The reduction in services is most directly the result of one specific provision — that only a physician, not a nurse practitioner or physician's assistant, may perform an abortion or provide abortion pills.
So why doesn't Planned Parenthood simply hire more physicians? The fact is, most doctors, who take an oath to "first, do no harm," want no part of a procedure that terminates more than 800,000 pregnancies every year.
The most recent issue of Obstetrics and Gynecology included a survey of 1,800 OB-GYNs showing that "97 percent encountered patients seeking abortions, whereas 14 percent performed them."
It's hardly surprising that OB-GYNs, who enter medicine to care for the unborn and safely bring new life into the world, aren't scrambling for the chance to use a "hand-held suction device (to) gently empty (the) uterus," as the Planned Parenthood website euphemistically describes the most common in-clinic abortion process.
The pro-choice movement's real competition isn't "the religious right;" it's the human conscience.
This is why they oppose other provisions of the legislation, like the requirement that doctors provide women seeking abortions with certain information in person at least 24 hours before the abortion is performed.
This information includes the nature of the procedure, associated risks, alternatives, the anatomical and physiological characteristics of the unborn child at the time of the abortion and the types of assistance available to the mother should she choose to have her baby.
That list includes no propaganda. It's a list of facts, all relevant to the major life-altering decision being made by a woman under a great deal of duress. The provision of accurate information helps to ensure that whatever decision the woman makes is one she can live with.
Doctors will also now be required to offer women an opportunity to listen to the fetus and view an ultrasound prior to having an abortion.
Again, one would think that "pro-choice" groups would favor giving women options, but for some, options that reveal the humanness of the unborn are over the line.
With a little dispassionate consideration, it's plain to see that the new regulations adopted by Arizona are rational controls on a serious procedure.
Despite what you may have heard, pro-lifers care deeply about women and don't desire to tell anybody what they can and can't do with their own body.
This debate boils down to the value of the second body involved — that of the unborn. It is either a valuable life or worthless tissue.
Any ambiguity as to the correct answer to that question is an argument for protection, not disposal.
If you've ever been annoyed by pro-life signs on campus depicting aborted fetuses, I challenge you to ask yourself whether it's really the guy holding the sign that disturbs you.
Perhaps the disquiet you feel indicates that something valuable really is at stake.
Question David’s intelligence and/or character at dcolthar@asu.edu
