In what world are vaccines comparable to abortions? Vaccines save lives, prevent horrible diseases and are recommended for everyone, whereas abortions take lives, cause horrible pain and are supposed to never be wanted by anyone. Only to an extreme, pro-abortion movement steeped in the racist eugenics history of Planned Parenthood and its founder Margaret Sanger are abortions like vaccines, inoculating society from the scourge of the spread of more poor and minority babies being born.

One abortion advocate is trying to equate the anti-vaccination movement with those of us who believe in the sanctity of unborn human life. This ridiculous guilt by association is just the latest example of the left trying to discredit the pro-life, conservative side as anti-science.

Terry Gallagher, an assistant professor and family nurse practitioner at Rush University College of Nursing, takes the news about a resurgence in the measles due to anti-vaxxers as a chance to take a slap at pro-lifers in an op-ed submitted to The Hill on Tuesday. Citing her nursing experience (although it's 10 years more than I have, 10 years experience is hardly an impressive appeal to authority), Gallagher claims both the anti-vax and anti-abortion movements are "filled with misinformation" and "symptoms of a lack of understanding of safe, evidence-based medical practices."

She says:

Falsehoods based on flawed logic at times appear louder than the facts from medical providers. This is especially true when the president of the United States falsely accuses medical providers of executions, preferring to garner support with revulsion rather than facts. [emphasis mine]

That last bit's funny coming from the side that screams about bloody coat hangers and falsely accuses pro-lifers of wanting women to die.

The author conveniently avoids the fact that President Trump was referring specifically to Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam’s, a medical provider, own description of a late-term or post-birth abortion and what state Democrats’ bill would allow. We also have evidence of babies being executed after birth by abortionists like Dr. Kermit Gosnell and Dr. Douglas Karpen. And do we really trust quack "medical providers" like Dr. Steven Chase Brigham, Dr. Vikram Kaji, and Dr. Melvin L. Henderson to deliver the facts and act properly? Truly, there's no honor among abortionists.

Witnessing these emotional issues debated in the public forum is disheartening. My job is to prevent illness in my patients and to treat their diseases as they occur. I advise patients to receive vaccinations. I refer patients to another provider for an abortion if they request it and my decisions are based on medical facts, evidence and protocol.

I have to wonder if there is ever an instance in which Gallagher would not refer for abortion. The vast majority of abortions - one figure puts it at 98.3 percent! - are elective and done for social, not medical, reasons. Pregnancy is not an illness or disease of which to be cured and there are no medical facts or evidence on which to base a decision to refer a patient for an elective abortion. Abortion is not healthcare!

Gallagher conflates vaccines and abortion again, saying with both involve unfounded fear:

Parents in my clinic refuse vaccines out of fear for the health of their child, but their fear is misplaced. They should fear the life-threatening illnesses which have largely been eradicated from the modern world, not the side effects of vaccines that are either rare or misstated. The same is true for legal abortion. The fear that millions of women would choose abortion on a whim or because they “changed their mind” is unfounded. What people should fear is women not having access to this procedure which continues to save lives.

Well, we've already established that millions of women do choose abortion for elective reasons, but I guess it depends on her definition of "on a whim." I don't think anyone gets pregnant just so they can have an abortion, but I've read enough stories from callous privileged Millennials shouting their abortions to say, yes, some do it on a whim.

The pro-abortion side also has this weird cognitive dissonance where they think women never change their mind on abortion. They deny the existence of groups like Silent No More that allow women to speak out about the pain and regret caused by their abortion.

One San Francisco abortionist actually wrote of the rise in women changing their minds and asking for "abortion reversals" in the middle of a multi-day process and said she expects this to become more common as medication abortions increase. Several of the reasons she and her fellow abortionists hear could work the other way, too, like: "A husband or boyfriend urged her to have an abortion," "A husband or boyfriend persuaded her to keep the baby." Women change their minds all the time, there's not denying it.

...In the anti-abortion movement, a similar aversion to facts seems to dominate. The term pro-life assumes binary opinions and presumes anyone who does not prescribe is “anti-life.” In my experience, all health-care providers are pro-life as the mission is for people to live.

Talk about an aversion to facts, if the mission is for people to live, then no medical provider should ever refer, recommend or perform an abortion unless the mother will die without it.

Prior to the recent abortion laws approved in New York state and the hotly contested proposed bill on third trimester abortions in Virginia, many in the anti-abortion movement incorrectly thought “on-demand” abortions were already available to women. The truth is most state laws restrict abortions after 20 weeks of gestation.

Gallagher is completely wrong about abortion law. The United States remains one of only seven countries in the world that allow elective abortions after 20 weeks after a 20-week abortion ban failed in the Senate last year. Roe v. Wade, along with the extremely broad definition of "health" (which includes age and mental health) in its companion case Doe v. Bolton, made abortion on demand legal through all nine months of pregnancy in every state, you just have to say you're depressed or something.

Planned Parenthood's former research arm the Guttmacher Institute explains that many state laws that conflict with Roe remain on the books even after being struck down. Roe supersedes state law, the big reason why New York, Virginia, and other states are changing their laws right now is because liberals fear Roe will soon be overturned in which case state laws will go back into effect. Also, it is not "the truth" that "most" state laws restrict abortions after 20 weeks, Guttmacher says only 17 states do. If you're going to opine on and refer for abortions, you should probably be more familiar with the law.

“On-demand” is a term coined by conservatives to further stoke an emotional response. The uniformed, incorrect belief was that any woman at any stage of her pregnancy, could walk into any Planned Parenthood in the United States and get an abortion.

Really? The side that coined terms like “anti-choice,” “clump of cells,” and “forced birth" to stoke emotional response is lecturing about phraseology? And we know you can't just walk into ANY Planned Parenthood to get an abortion at any time, only certain ones that are equipped for late term abortions.

...Recently Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and former Alaska governor Sarah Palin referred to abortion as “infanticide,” but infanticide is not a medical practice. The confusion apparently intended to further stoke an emotional response, however inaccurate.

Rubio and Palin were directly Tweeting about Gov. Northam’s words and calling them infanticide, not abortion in general, although many consider the spirit to be the same.

Rubio and Palin were referring to comfort care, a common practice in health care where, should life-saving procedures prove fruitless, the decision is made to focus on reducing pain and suffering of the newborn. It is a peaceful time that allows the parents time to say goodbye to their newborn; it is nothing like the images the word “infanticide” conjures.

First of all, abortion is not comfort care! In fact, it is the opposite of the palliative care that is given to a dying child. Abortion is the intentional killing of a baby inside the womb, it should not be confused with a baby being born and made comfortable after attempts to save their life fail. Comfort care does not involve poisoning or dismembering the infant, or leaving them to die from exposure without so much as pain meds.

Furthermore, in referring to “comfort care,” Gallagher links to a document from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists regarding periviable birth, which is defined as “delivery occurring from 20 0/7 weeks to 25 6/7 weeks of gestation,” i.e. in the second trimester when viability varies by the day. As everyone knows, this particular debate in Virginia is over third trimester abortions, all of which take place after viability. And, again, Gov. Northam’s theoretical situation is not one in which “life-saving procedures prove fruitless,” especially if, as he posits, the "infant is resuscitated." Stop trying to defend the indefensible!

I’m pro-living, pro-humanity. The vaccines I give are life-saving, the abortions I refer patients to are life-saving.

This nurse does not recognize a fetus that has its own heartbeat and unique DNA as living or human, that is scary. And apparently, she only refers patients whose lives are threatened, because otherwise abortions are not life-saving, they are life-taking.

Health-care providers are taught in school how to discern a reliable source from flawed research, no matter the issue, whether it is about vaccinations or abortion access. False information is not excusable when it affects the health of individuals, the community and humanity.

I completely agree, false information is not excusable, but unfortunately Gallagher is a medical provider who spreads and acts upon it. I recommend patients seek information and care elsewhere.