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Students for Life has a new video out that examines the question of whether aborting an unborn baby is necessary to save a woman’s life.

Tina Whittington, executive vice president of Students for Life, walks pro-lifers through the question in the short video. She begins by explaining that both the mother and her unborn child must be considered as separate patients who deserve treatment and care.

“When it comes to recommended medical procedures, the answer is that we can perform any action that is intended to save lives, but also does not directly or intentionally kill anyone, like an abortion,” Whittington said in the video.

For example, in some situations, an early delivery could be scheduled to eliminate the risk to the mother without directly killing her baby, according to the video. With an ectopic pregnancy, the baby could be removed from the fallopian tube in a procedure that saves the mother’s life and does not intentionally kill the child. Unlike abortion, the intention of these procedures are to save as many lives as possible.

Medical experts also say that aborting an unborn child is not necessary to save the life of the mother. During an international symposium in 2012 in Dublin, a group of Irish medical professionals concluded that “direct abortion is not medically necessary to save the life of a mother,” LifeNews reported.

“Irish Obstetricians and Gynaecologists have previously pointed out that treatment for conditions such as ectopic pregnancy are not considered abortion by doctors, yet misinformation in regard to this abounds in public debate. The Symposium clarifies that direct abortion is never medically necessary to save the life of a woman, and that’s good news for mothers and their babies,” said Professor Eamon O’Dwyer.

Former abortionist Dr. Anthony Levatino gives a similar answer: “During my time at Albany Medical Center I managed hundreds of such cases by ‘terminating’ pregnancies [via live delivery by C-section] to save mothers’ lives. In all those hundreds of cases, the number of unborn children that I had to deliberately kill was zero.” [ed. In other words, he delivered the babies early to save the mother. The babies survived.]

Pro-lifers recognize that in some rare circumstances when the mother’s life is at stake, it may only be possible to save one person’s life. But in those tragic cases, the intent should be to save lives, not kill them.

Watch the video at: http://www.lifenews.com/2016/05/27/is-abortion-okay-when-the-mothers-life-is-in-danger-a-new-video-has-answers/
[Micaiah Bilger, May 27, 2016, Washington, DC, http://www.lifenews.com/2016/05/27/is-abortion-okay-when-the-mothers-life-is-in-danger-a-new-video-has-answers/ ]