Dr. Byron Calhoun answers several questions for The Abortion Museum and this is the raw footage of our interview. This footage will assist us in creating a series of museum exhibits on the truth/history surrounding abortion.
Transcript
The transcript was automatically generated and may contain errors.
Jacob Barr
Welcome to the Pro Life Team Podcast. My name is Jacob Barr. And in this episode, we’re sharing footage captured for the abortion museum.
Dr. Byron Calhoun
Oh, I’m Byron Calhoun. I’m fetal medicine, which is high risk obstetrics. And I have about 30 years in both obstetrics and gynecology and also high risk obstetrics. I am also diplomat of the American board. I am board certified as I pointed out. Have been doing this, like I said, for about 30 years. And I’m a professor and vice chair at West Virginia University, so I teach medical students and residents, and, involved in patient care virtually every day.
So active practice.
Jacob Barr
Awesome. So when does new, new human life begin?
Dr. Byron Calhoun
Well, I’m gonna preface a little bit. If I go off into the fetus and embryo, which we’ll talk a little bit about some of those distinctions versus baby, I always consider it as a baby. But, if you look at what we talk about in terms of life beginning, embryologically, scientifically, it begins at the moment the egg and the sperm meet in conception. You become a complete new member of, Homo sapiens, a new human being, if you will.
Speaker 3
Byron, can you make sure you’re, looking at the camera?
Dr. Byron Calhoun
That camera? Yes.
Jacob Barr
Got it. Oh, okay. Yeah.
Speaker 3
We’re okay, though. That’s fine.
Jacob Barr
Yeah. What, what it’s okay. What words do what, what is that? What words do medical professionals typically use to describe whatever it is that’s inside the pregnant mother? What exactly that gets aborted?
Dr. Byron Calhoun
The scientific, definition of the of the, the the baby essentially is it’s an embryo below 12 weeks, and after, 12 weeks to 13 weeks, then it becomes the fetus. When you look at an a performance of abortion, you’re looking at the, abortion or the, taking the life of a human being or a baby with the placenta and the membranes.
Jacob Barr
Perfect. Question 3. Please share about some of the development milestones as that tiny human grows from a single cell all the way to a fully formed baby at birth? For example, when is there a detectable heartbeat, fingernails, brainwaves, pain sensations, and dreaming?
Dr. Byron Calhoun
If you look at the way, you’ve described different things we’ve talked about, fetal heart rate generally is detectable by ultrasound between 5 6 weeks gestation, which is from last menstrual period, which is actually really more like 3 to 4 weeks if you look at, from time of of conception. Fingernails start forming at about 11 weeks and are fully formed by probably 19 or 20 weeks. There have been reports of brain waves being present as early as 5 to 6 weeks after, LNP. Pain is debatable, but certainly the development of the fetus or the baby is complete enough to where pain should be felt at approximately 15 weeks. Dreaming is one of those things that everybody argues about. It’s probably as early as 20 to 22 weeks. We think that the baby’s, frontal cortex has developed enough to get the actual dreams, and then you start seeing baby eye movements like REM sleep.
Jacob Barr
Makes sense. Question 4.
Some people may not realize that in the medical world, the word abortion has a wider scope of meaning than what we see in a political and then in political debates on this topic. Would you clarify what is natural abortion, spontaneous abortion, and missed abortion?
Dr. Byron Calhoun
The the definition, narrowly, of an abortion is any pregnancy that’s delivered or, terminated before 20 weeks. So everything 20 weeks and below is considered an abortion. If you look at the definition of a natural abortion, that would be similar to a spontaneous abortion. That would be one that was completed without surgery or without any medication. If you look at, again, the spontaneous, that’s simply one that passes naturally without any intervention. The idea of a missed abortion is where you find a loss of a baby or fetus or embryo or fetus, if you will, before 20 weeks without any symptoms. The the the patient or the mother would come in and would just find absent heart tones and that would be called a missed abortion because the mother doesn’t, have any idea that she’s having a a loss of her pregnancy.
Jacob Barr
Makes sense. What is therapeutic abortion, and what is elective abortion?
Dr. Byron Calhoun
If you look at the term therapeutic, that is allegedly an abortion that’s done, less than 20 weeks gestation for a medical condition, or threat to the mother’s life. A grave threat. And that would be hemorrhage or severe high blood pressure or infection like sepsis. Things that would actually interfere with the woman’s ability to function or damage her. An elective abortion is simply one that’s done because the patient does not want the pregnancy or the or the baby.
Jacob Barr
Question number 6. That’s a good thank you for that definition. Question number 6. To the best of your knowledge, are there any states that have legally banned miscarriage, stillbirth, or therapeutic abortion?
Dr. Byron Calhoun
There are no states that I’m aware of that that would ban any ability to deal with a miscarriage or a baby who’s died in utero or stillbirth, and they all have language that I’m aware of, that would define what would allow you to, deliver a mother or do, an abortion below 20 weeks for a severe, threat to the mother’s life.
Jacob Barr
Makes sense. Number 7. There is some disagreement about where to draw the line between elective versus therapeutic abortion. How dangerous does a pregnancy have to be before an abortion would qualify as therapeutic? Please give some examples.
Dr. Byron Calhoun
I think that this has been obfuscated or really blurred, but really the usual criteria that are written or that we understand medically are those that are done for the life of the mother where her life is in imminent danger or a grave harm to the mother or her functioning some way physically. Usually, those are severe preeclampsia, severe high blood pressure. It would be perhaps rupture of membranes with mother with sepsis or severe infection. Critically, ill patient with heart disease, perhaps. And the final one would be severe bleeding or hemorrhage would be examples.
Jacob Barr
Question number 8. Some suggest that when women experience pregnancy complications, abortion typically isn’t as safe as just inducing early early delivery. Perhaps offering palliative care if the child is too premature.
What do you think? Is this true? Part partly true, mostly false, or entirely false?
Dr. Byron Calhoun
It it depends on how you define the complications. I think that if you look at the literature, abortion abortion is always more dangerous to women. If you look at maternal mortality, you look at preterm birth risk, you look at breast cancer risk, and the psychological effects of abortion, it’s always, worse for women to have abortion than it is to try to do a delivery or provide care. The idea of providing palliative care is actually a very interesting question. It’s actually been looked at. There was a group at Harvard actually looked at this looking at babies with ancephaly, which is essentially uniformly fatal. And what they found, there was a significant difference in the outcomes, especially emotionally and psychologically to the mothers who underwent palliative care or hospice care versus those who did the elective abortion procedures.
Jacob Barr
Thank you for talking on that. Number 9. What are some of the health risks involved in pregnancy and childbirth?
Dr. Byron Calhoun
Well, the risk in pregnancy, we’ve talked a little bit about that, really would be preeclampsia or high blood pressure. Pregnancy is one of the significant problems we see. We also see, diabetes, of course, as one of the increased risks that we see. There’s postpartum hemorrhage after patients deliver as a risk to pregnancy. There are an aesthetic complications, that may be involved in that. There’s also some increased risk if you look at the the literature for homicides and overdose and even suicide involved
Jacob Barr
in pregnancy and childbirth? The thing I involved in pregnancy and childbirth?
Dr. Byron Calhoun
The thing I always tell you on women in particular is that there really is, a decreased risk of death. It improves your life immensely. There’s been a study we did actually looking at a rather large Danish database of several 1000000 women. And what we found was the death rates in women over their life was about half of the half of what it would be if you had an abortion versus live birth. We also know that there’s an increased risk of breast cancer even though that’s been disputed. If you look at multiple studies that’s across all, ethnicities and across the whole world, there’s a definitely increased risk of breast cancer if you get pregnant and carry to term, less than 30 years of age. Decreased risk of ovarian cancer.
There’s a decreased risk of uterine cancer. And there may be some, salient benefits to the idea that there may be decreased risk for some of the, mental for sure, mental health issues as well.
Jacob Barr
Makes sense. Thank you for talking on on that.
Question number 11. Abortion is often discussed and and debated in society, but people rarely discuss what’s actually involved in abortion procedures. Why might people tend to avoid discussing the details of abortion procedures when it’s such an important issue in culture today?
Dr. Byron Calhoun
I I think it’s because it’s it’s absolutely gruesome. When you look at the idea that you’re doing a surgical procedure even early in 12 or 13 weeks, essentially, using a suction procedure in particular or using curette. You’re dismembering a a a living human being, and it’s just it’s just bloody. If you’re looking at the later on term late late term abortions in particular where you’re dismembering children, that are alive, you’re pulling arms and legs and crushing skulls. It it’s something that’s just really unimaginable to most people. And when you try to talk about it, they absolutely think you’re you’re not telling the truth. They think you’re lying about it, but it absolutely is the truth.
That’s how you have to do this. I think there’s also the fact with medical abortions, I’ve had some people talking to me about that. If you’re delivering your, you know, 12 or 13 week baby at home in the toilet, and it’s still trying to be alive, and you’re bleeding, that’s absolutely, again, gruesome for these poor women. And it’s just traumatic as as anything they could ever imagine. Also, people wanna talk about the possibility of injuries, lacerations, injuries to other organs, infections. There’s all these things that a surgical procedure risks that are carried in that. And also, even in the medicals abortions with bleeding and or infection.
So people don’t wanna talk about that because that’s not part of the story that wants to be told.
Jacob Barr
Question number 12. Would you sketch out for us the different types of surgical and
Dr. Byron Calhoun
machine that has high power suction, and you use a curette. You would suction, the either living or the the, miscarriage out with the suction. And you’d use a sharp curette to make sure that you, were able to get all the placenta out. These can be quite, bloody depending on how much, how far praying the patient is and and how much bleeding there is. Can cause civic significant morbidity if if they really, become a a large amount of bleeding. It can also perforate. It can also have, again, injury to other organs, which is why talking about doing these in a clinic without anesthesia or proper backup is is, in my in my opinion, is is essentially nowhere near the standard of care.
If you’re looking at the farther pregnant, say, in the 2nd trimester, 14, 15, 16 weeks, now you’re actually having to talk about dismembering, pulling the baby apart essentially while alive if you’re doing a a 3rd trimester, 2nd trimester or even if there’s a demise and you’re having to forcibly dilate the cervix open to several centimeters so that you can get the fetal parts out and you have to count parts. Again, it’s a, disturbing thing to have to do even on a a baby who’s, been a stillbirth. Medical abortions, flipping to those, most commonly done with mifepristone or mifeprex, excuse me, to cause the death of the fetus and then using the, misoprostol to cause the expelling of the fetus. That’s usually early, 49 days or less, but has been done up to 10 weeks, which a much much higher failure rate. Or if they’re farther along, after say 22, 23, 24 weeks, and you wanna do medical, you can do the misoprostol, which causes uterine contractions and then delivery of the of the baby. Or, you could do later on, even say at 30 4, 35, 36 weeks, you could do medications like Pitocin and cause contractions and affect delivery that way of the of the, of the baby.
Jacob Barr
Awesome. What are what are some of the health risks involved in abortion? Well, I
Dr. Byron Calhoun
think I categorize usually 4 main things that I always think of. There’s increased mortality, which is 2 to 3 times for a term birth. If you look at overall mortality rates, and that’s been documented by the by particularly the Finnish data. They have a really good database and they have really good data. So they show that there’s a 2 to 3 time increase risk for people who undergo abortion versus, those who don’t. There’s increased breast cancer risk, which every study shows probably about 20 to 25% at least risk for breast cancer. Particularly the early onset breast cancers.
The other thing is mental health issues, which are at least 10%, probably higher than that. Looking at anxiety, depression, people that are abusing drugs and or or alcohol. So those are all involved in in abortion as well. And the final one, which has been something I’ve written about it a lot, is preterm birth. There’s at least a 30% increased risk for preterm birth after one abortion, and maybe as high as 60 to 70 after 2. And as you go to 3 and 4 and 5, it goes up, even up over 70% increased risk for preterm birth with multiple surgical abortions in particular.
Jacob Barr
What are some of the health benefits involved in abortion?
Dr. Byron Calhoun
There are no benefits to abortion, in my opinion. None.
Jacob Barr
Makes sense. How much does a typical abortion cost? And the same question for a typical pregnancy.
Dr. Byron Calhoun
It would depend on when you do the abortion. The earlier abortions that are done before, say, 12 weeks, cost several $100 and it depends on the clinic and what they do and where they’re at. They use anesthetics, depending on the procedure and how it’s done, particularly surgical. Even the medical abortions can cost, several $100 depending again on on how they get the medications and and follow-up and other things. Surgical abortions, particularly that are done after 13 or 14 or 15 weeks, much more complicated, are generally several $1,000. And those are supposed to be done in in places that have resuscitation and actual surgical suites. But, again, people say those can be done in an outpatient area, which is, to me, seems insane.
They’re they’re extremely dangerous.
Speaker 3
And then the same question for what’s the typical cost for
Jacob Barr
a, a pregnancy?
Dr. Byron Calhoun
Well, if you depending on the pregnancy, probably 2 or $3,000 overall for the overall cost of a pregnancy,
Jacob Barr
perspective, what are some of the biggest misconceptions people have about abortion?
Dr. Byron Calhoun
I think the the biggest thing that’s touted about, particularly, elective abortion is that it’s a safe procedure without complications. And as I pointed out, there is significant impact on the on the mother. There’s impact on her family. Obviously, there’s a 100% mortality for every baby. So to not believe that there’s any complications with a major medical procedure that takes the life of the baby or a surgical procedure is is simply, not true.
Jacob Barr
Makes sense. Question 17.
It’s been said that most every woman who has an abortion didn’t really want an abortion. They just felt like there was no there’s no option for them. In your experience, does that ring true or not?
Dr. Byron Calhoun
I think my experience has been that everyone I’ve ever talked to about their abortions didn’t want them. And it’s very interesting how they would term it. Generally, they’ll say that their doctor said they should have an abortion or ought to have an abortion with a medical. I see high risk patients, so all the patients who have any medical complication of any sort, have have been told they have to have an abortion, the baby will be born damaged, the the usual litany of things that that simply aren’t true. Then they talk about their family told them they had to because of the family dynamic, or their partner thought they needed an abortion because they, to to stabilize the relationship or that they couldn’t complete their college or whatever other stories told to somebody about a child.
Jacob Barr
And thank you for sharing on that. Number 18. Abortion providers have made a strong push to expand access to the abortion pill. Many suggest it’s safer than surgical
Dr. Byron Calhoun
actually pills. Generally, because the, mifeprex, which is the RU 46, it’s a progesterone inhibitor. So it blocks progesterone to the placenta. And so what happens is that means that the baby then dies from lack of progesterone. And then they use, the misoprostol to expel the the, the fetus who has died from the effects of the of the other drug. So that’s what it’s not 1 but 2. I think the idea that it’s safer is really not true.
If you look at the data, one, it’s flawed because we don’t have a lot of good data on the, actual complications. The second part of this is that they will talk about failure rates because they they hide those statistics too. There’s a 2% failure rate if you do it about 10 weeks is when it was supposedly approved. But now they’re doing it up to, 10 to 11 or 12 weeks of which is a 7% failure rate. If they fail they have to be dealt with surgically. If you do it surgically, that increases your risk of preterm birth to by 20 to 30% minimum and maybe as high as 70 or 80% if you look at the, amount of preterm delivery with it. So it’s not really safer than surgical, it’s just easier to administer because you can do it online, or you can have pick it up at the local drug store, or whatever other way you can do it.
It’s less effort on the abortionist part.
Speaker 3
Makes sense.
Jacob Barr
Question 19. Elective abortion choice is often promoted as health care for women specifically. In your view, is elective abortion healthcare?
Dr. Byron Calhoun
I think if you look at the definition of healthcare, we’re usually using health care to treat a disease. Pregnancy is not a disease, it’s a normal function of life. So therefore, I have to conclude that abortion is not healthcare. It’s a social solution to a problem, but it’s not health care. You’re not treating a disease.
Jacob Barr
Makes sense. Mario, how are
Speaker 3
we doing with the time?
Jacob Barr
That’s fine. Okay. Question 20.
In your experience, when women seek an abortion, how well informed are they about what’s involved in the abortion procedure and what effects it may have on them overall? I
Dr. Byron Calhoun
think most of them aren’t really well informed. I think that they don’t understand as we’ve talked about preterm birth. We’ve talked about breast cancer. We’ve talked about the psychological effects. We’ve talked about, the mortality effects. None of that’s really shared for the most part. And I don’t think many women are ready or understand what’s gonna happen, particularly in a surgical abortion.
Or if they have a medical abortion, they’re gonna actually deliver their baby at home with no one there, and that can be very disturbing for them.
Jacob Barr
And then lastly, is there anything else you’d like to add that we didn’t ask you about when it comes to this topic of abortion in the in the medical with your medical experience?
Dr. Byron Calhoun
Well, since I’m sort of, I’ve said, one of the pioneers in perinatal hospice or hospice care, palliative care, I would like to encourage any woman who has a baby with an adverse diagnosis, anencephaly or anything of that nature, that they would, be informed about perinatal hospice. And that they could find that at perinatalhospice.org. They could find a program or a physician or someone who would be willing to help them with that because those those children deserve that compassion and that care, and the outcomes are better.
Jacob Barr
And then lastly, would you define what perinatal hospice is?
Dr. Byron Calhoun
Perinatal hospice is the, placing the continuum of care for end of life care before the baby’s born. While inside in utero, and helping the family deal with the inevitable loss of their child after birth. However, long that might be a few minutes, a few hours, a few days.
Speaker 3
Awesome.
Jacob Barr
Alright. Thank you so much. I appreciate your time.