Over 40 years after it was given, one doctor’s Congressional testimony offers a chilling reminder of how fatal restricted abortion access can be. ; Fusion ;editor Taryn Hillin recently unearthed ;a ;1974 ;testimony from a congressional ;hearing on the ;possibility of adding a Human Life Amendment ;to the Constitution. The amendment would have essentially reversed the historic 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling protecthing a woman’s right to choose, instead valuing a fetus over a woman’s health and safety. ;Thankfully, the amendment never passed. ; Dr. Michael ;Levi, an OBGYN and a former attending physician at Harlem Hospital, gave a ;harrowing first-hand account of ;what happens when a woman’s right to choose is taken away. Below is an excerpt: “Prior to the liberalization of the New York abortion law, I …
Over 40 years after it was given, one doctor’s Congressional testimony offers a chilling reminder of how fatal restricted abortion access can be. ;
Fusion ;editor Taryn Hillin recently unearthed ;a ;1974 ;testimony from a congressional ;hearing on the ;possibility of adding a Human Life Amendment ;to the Constitution. The amendment would have essentially reversed the historic 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling protecthing a woman’s right to choose, instead valuing a fetus over a woman’s health and safety. ;Thankfully, the amendment never passed. ;
Dr. Michael ;Levi, an OBGYN and a former attending physician at Harlem Hospital, gave a ;harrowing first-hand account of ;what happens when a woman’s right to choose is taken away.
Below is an excerpt:
“Prior to the liberalization of the New York abortion law, I have seen women die from legal abortions; many women die,” Levi said during his testimony, adding later that “19,830,000 women each year will suffer death and complications because of illegal abortions” worldwide. ;
Currently, 47,000 women die every year around the world due to unsafe abortions with millions more seriously ;injured. Almost all ;of these deaths and injuries are preventable if women had safe and legal access to abortion. ;
Towards the end of his testimony, Levi once again explained how important legal abortions are to the safety and well-being of women. ;
“I am committed to legalized abortion — morally, professionally and humanly because of the experiences before legal abortion and after liberalization of the laws,” he said. ;”Legalization [of abortion] means safety, not permissiveness; education, not ignorance; dignity, not shame.”
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Doctor’s 1974 Testimony Shows Just How Dangerous It Is When Abortion Is Illegal
