“While legal abortions in the U.S. are safe,” says a press release from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, “the likelihood that women will receive the type of abortion services that best meet their needs varies considerably depending on where they live.” Not to worry, researchers say, “The vast majority of abortions can be provided safely in office-based settings.” Furthermore, said research panel co-chair Dr. Ned Calonge of the University of Colorado, “Abortions do not increase the risk of breast cancer and abortions have no effect on future mental health issues including depression, anxiety or PTSD.”

In other words, the biggest problem with abortion is access and regulation. The Associated Press blames pro-life laws: “While state restrictions may be intended to reduce overall abortions, the panel said those barriers can reduce the quality of care for women who undergo the procedure by preventing them from receiving the type of abortion that best meets their needs in a timely, equitable, science-based manner.”

Let’s just call this what it is: fake news.

Now, it may be largely true that serious medical complications that are reported are minimal because medical technology is indeed very good. And the link to secondary infertility or breast cancer is at least arguable, thanks, we don’t doubt, to outcome-based research by abortion proponents. But the mental health risks are very real. Ask any worker or volunteer who counsels post-abortive mothers at your local pregnancy resource center, like Choices here in Chattanooga, as well as the National Memorial for the Unborn — a place for grieving parents to remember their children and to find hope. Or ask the authors of Empty Arms, who record dozens of stories of hurt and healing for mothers who made this agonizing choice.

“Safe, legal and rare” is a lie. Whether leftists are denying that, at best, 50% of the patients who enter an abortion clinic come out alive, defending eugenics for babies with Down syndrome, or seeking to discredit reports of abortion clinics selling baby parts, leftists want abortion to continue as the ultimate sacrament of their pagan religion of humanism. That has ended the lives of 60 million children since 1973, and it has damaged just that many women — whether they admit it or not.