Americans United for Life Calls on President Obama to "Treat Abortion like the Medical Issue He Claims and Support Informed Consent and National Tracking"

"If the President wants all Americans to pay for abortions, then he should support our efforts to learn the true extent of abortion's impact on women and girls," said AUL's Dr. Charmaine Yoest.

WASHINGTON, Feb. 12, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- President Obama did not directly address the Life issue in his State of the Union Address. Yet pro-abortion policies and funding are at the heart of his Administration and have been mandated through his healthcare law, violating the conscience rights of millions of Americans. This should be a matter of national concern, noted Americans United for Life President and CEO Dr. Charmaine Yoest. "It's striking that the President did not mention the Life issue tonight, despite the long catalogue of other issues he did choose to address. The President helped create a healthcare law that intertwines abortion and funding for life-ending drugs and devices throughout," said Dr. Yoest. "AUL is calling on President Obama to treat abortion like the medical issue he claims it to be and support informed consent for women and girls and national tracking of a procedure that has occurred, conservatively, more than 55 million times since abortion became legal."

Dr. Yoest made the following statement: "The death last week of an abortion patient after a late-term abortion at 33-weeks of pregnancy at Germantown Reproductive Health Center in Germantown, Maryland, is another reminder of the need for a reliable system to track the number of abortions, abortion deaths, or abortion complications."

"Across the country, public health departments only haphazardly collect information about deaths and complications from this elective procedure. Until we have an accurate count of the number of abortions performed in the U.S., and accurate monitoring of deaths and complications, women cannot be fully informed about the choice of abortion."  

"In fact, in the U.S., there are two sources of data on abortion deaths and complications, both equally unreliable: the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the Alan Guttmacher Institute (AGI). Both rely on voluntary (not mandatory) reporting. Neither has any reliable mechanism for double-checking the accuracy of the submitted information.

The CDC gets its data on the number of abortions from state public health departments; the reporting is completely voluntary. Some states, like California, don't report the number of abortions at all.

"In contrast to most important health indicators — births, deaths, cancer, HIV, STDs, etc. — there is no national reporting law requiring that abortions or their complications be reported to national health officials or agencies. Americans United for Life, the legal architects of the pro-life movement, has model legislation that can address this egregious void in our public health systems, as well as legislation that would require women and girls be given all the information available before having an abortion or taking a life-ending drug."

"It is irresponsible of the President to insist that Americans pay for life-ending drugs and devices as well as for a medical procedure without also requiring a full reporting of the consequences of such a choice. This nonchalance about deaths and complications from a procedure performed routinely on American women is unconscionable."

SOURCE Americans United for Life