Ultrasound plays a pivotal role in the hotly debated world of abortion. As of September 2023, 27 states regulate the provision of an ultrasound by an abortion provider. Of these 27 states, 10 mandate an abortion provider perform an ultrasound at the time of an abortion and eight states require that the provider of an abortion offer the patient the opportunity to view the ultrasound image prior to an abortion.
Though the research in this area is admittedly scant, the data available pertaining to ultrasound’s role in a woman’s abortion decision, as interpreted by the abortion advocates and the anti-abortion advocates, are as far apart as night and day. Truly, the distinction is black and white.
Abortion advocates frequently cite data presented in a 2014 published report entitled, “Relationship Between Ultrasound Viewing and Proceeding to Abortion.”
The authors studied and reviewed the electronic medical records of over 15,000 women seeking abortion at 19 different Planned Parenthood facilities in the city of Los Angeles during the 2011 calendar year. The goal of the study was to “see if a woman’s decision to view or not view her ultrasound image was associated with a decision to continue the pregnancy.”
A little over one-half of the total group of women underwent an abortion without having an ultrasound performed. This group of 8,718 women was compared to the remaining 6,450 women who opted to voluntarily view their fetus by ultrasound prior to deciding on whether to continue with the abortion.
In this study, the authors reported 99% of those women who presented to Planned Parenthood and who did not view an ultrasonographic image of their embryo, terminated their pregnancy. Of those who presented to Planned Parenthood for an intended abortion, 98.4% of the 6,450 women who chose to view the ultrasound image of the life within their uterus proceeded with an abortion.
This is a difference of only 1.6% – a difference the left points to and celebrates like an NFL running back’s self-absorbed dance after a game winning sprint to the endzone.
Supporters of the abortion industry cling to this data as if their lives depend upon it.
[Click here to subscribe to Pregnancy Help News!]
The abortion advocates don’t want to admit nor even mention what’s buried deep in the article – that “women at 17-19 weeks of gestation…were almost 20 times as likely to continue the pregnancy compared with women at less than 9 weeks of gestation” after seeing their baby on ultrasound.
To their credit however, the authors did point out the linear relationship between gestational age at the time of viewing an ultrasound image and the decision not to proceed with their planned abortion.
In other words, the further along a woman is at the time of viewing her baby by ultrasound, the more likely she is to continue her pregnancy and not proceed with an abortion. The presumption being, of course, that the woman realized the kicking she had just visualized on the ultrasound actually did represent life.
On the other hand, anti-abortion advocates regard pregnancy as the two-way construct it actually is.
They embrace the notion that conception did not occur in a vacuum without the contribution of a male partner. Therefore, anti-abortion advocates, when studying the issue, make a distinction between the abortion-vulnerable and the abortion-minded client and the presence of the father of the baby at the time of an ultrasound, something a Planned Parenthood-based study would likely never do or even consider.
Their data indicate that in the abortion-vulnerable subset, 15% proceed with an abortion without viewing an ultrasound and only 6% proceed with an abortion after viewing an ultrasound when the father of the baby is present whereas, in the abortion-minded client, 74% proceed with an abortion without viewing an ultrasound and 48% proceed with an abortion after viewing an ultrasound with the father of the baby present.
So, wherein do we find the truth?
The data from both studies reveal an inconvenient truth.
Even in the Planned Parenthood-based study, the performance of an ultrasound forever impacted the plans – and lives – of 104 women (1.6% of 6,450), who continued their pregnancy.
Admittedly, it was not determined or known by the authors the final outcome of those 104 women who chose to continue their pregnancy after viewing the ultrasound that was offered to them. But imagine for a moment if there were a fire in a Los Angeles building and 104 lives were saved. The media would blast it non-stop 24/7 for days while providing dramatic on-the-scene coverage of the impact on the 104 individuals who were miraculously saved, not to mention the impact upon the lives of their loved ones.
Wherever the truth resides, the indisputable fact is the performance of an ultrasound can have a profound impact on a pregnant woman considering an abortion and whether she chooses life rather than an abortion; the incidence of abortion can only be lowered.
Tweet This: An ultrasound can have a profound impact on a pregnant woman considering an abortion and whether she chooses life.
Editor’s note: Dr. Lloyd Holm is a retired OB/GYN and former President of the Iowa State Board of Health who is currently the Executive Director of Options for Women/River Falls, a pregnancy resource center in Western Wisconsin. He is a contributor to The Federalist and his writings have appeared in The Omaha World- Herald, Obstetrics and Gynecology, the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Iowa Medicine, The Female Patient, and most recently, the on-line networking platform for medical professionals, Doximity. This article is a Pregnancy Help News original.
