If anti-abortion activists really were "pro-life" as they try to bill themselves, then they would absolutely support abortions in cases where the procedure would save the lives of women. And I don't mean merely being "pro-choice" in such cases, but I mean actually being "pro-abortion" -- especially in cases where the fetus has no chance of making it to term.
In reality, many anti-abortion activists don't adopt that position. In fact, I'm not sure that I've ever seen one do so. When it's medical professionals who fail to do this, they directly put women's lives at risk.
Mikki Kendall writes about her own experience nearly dying in a hospital because the doctor on call didn't do abortions for any reasons and didn't bother calling in anyone else:
A very kind nurse risked her job to call a doctor from the Reproductive Health Clinic who was not on call, and asked her to come in to save my life. Fortunately she was home, and got there relatively quickly. By the time she arrived, I was in bad shape. The blood loss had rendered me nearly incoherent, but she still moved me to a different wing and got me the painkillers no one else had during the screaming hours I'd spent in the hospital.
After she checked my lab tests, she told us I would need two bags of blood before she could perform the procedure. Her team (a cadre of wonderful students who should all go on to run their own clinics) took turns checking on me and my husband. They all kept assuring me that soon it would be over, and I would feel much better. My husband had to sign the consent for surgery (I was clearly not competent enough to make decisions), and they took me away along with a third bag of blood to be administered during the procedure.
Later I found out that the doctor had taken my husband aside as they brought me into surgery. She promised him she would do her best to save me, but she warned him there was a distinct possibility that she would fail. The doctor who didn't do abortions was supposed to have contacted her (or someone else who would perform the procedure) immediately. He didn't. Neither did his students. Supposedly there was a communication breakdown and they thought she had been notified, but I doubt it.
I don't know if his objections were religious or not; all I know is that when a bleeding woman was brought to him for treatment he refused to do the only thing that could stop the bleeding. Because he didn't do abortions. Ever.
Source: Salon
I can be sympathetic to medical professionals who object to elective abortions on personal, moral, and/or religious grounds. However, the only such grounds I'm will to extend my sympathies to are a sincere respect for life and desire to preserve life. Since it's beyond debate or question that sometimes an abortion is necessary to save a life, it's also beyond debate or question that anyone with a sincere desire to preserve life must also be willing to perform an abortion in cases where the fetus won't survive but the woman can.
I don't think that describes the doctor who was on call when Mikki Kendall went to the hospital. He may not have been comfortable doing the procedure because he didn't know it well enough, but in that case he should have gone to extra lengths to make sure Kendall was comfortable and to ensure that someone more qualified to do the procedure got to her in time.
He didn't do any of those things, which leads me to conclude that whatever his objections to abortion might have been based on, they had nothing to do with respect for life or a desire to preserve life. Instead, his behavior looks an awful lot more like someone who simply wants to punish women for being sexually active. Granted, we don't know everything about what happened and maybe there's more that we should hear but even if it wasn't true about him it's definitely true about many others who falsely adopt the "pro-life" label.
You can have a substantive, serious discussion with someone who is "pro-life" for reasons that are sincerely based in respect for and a desire to preserve life. You can have respectful disagreement with such a person. You can't, though, when a person adopts the label "pro-life" and talks about "life" when their real motivations are only about controlling women's behavior, options, and sexuality.
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