By Jim Cannon
Guest columnist
I read Cat Poland’s recent column, “My Abortion Story,” with interest, and I would like to share our story. I am happy Mrs. Poland was able to still have children afterwards.
My heart goes out to her for her story experiencing an ectopic pregnancy. My wife, Dianne, and I went through an ectopic pregnancy when we were 43 years old. We are now 82, so it was many years ago. We lived in Denver at the time.
After reading Cat Poland’s column, I looked through Dianne’s old medical records. She went to the doctor on Thursday, June 26, 1987, with heavy bleeding. Handwritten notes summarized the doctor’s initial possibilities: miscarriage, pregnancy in the tube (ectopic), tube rupture, internal bleeding from some other source. More tests were conducted Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday morning with results available Monday at 3 pm. Surgery appears to have been performed immediately after getting all test results on the afternoon of Monday, June 30, at Porter Hospital in Denver.
If I recall correctly, she was bleeding heavily. It was a scary time. She was told that unless something was done, she would die, and that the fetus was probably already dead but couldn’t survive if it wasn’t. Several doctors were involved, but I could find no official medical summaries, only our scribbled handwritten notes. We are Catholic. Dianne made the Catholic surgery nurse agree to baptize whatever was removed during the surgery. There wasn’t much time to really analyze the situation.
We have never considered this surgery a sin and have not confessed it as such. After checking with our local priests, the Catholic Church does not view the removal of ectopic pregnancies as being immoral and never has. This in fact is confirmed by what our conscience told us when we faced this situation in 1987.
My understanding is that states that have an abortion ban do not consider ending an ectopic pregnancy illegal and do not prohibit it from happening. There may be some doctors in these states that take that position in their practice, but they are making that decision on their own and not because the law requires it.
It is sad if women are dying from not removing an ectopic pregnancy. No one should have to die needlessly, but that pertains to unborn children also. Unborn children have no choice in the matter. According to the Guttmacher Institute, “[A]n estimated 1,126,000 abortions were provided by US clinicians in 2025, largely unchanged from 2024, when there were 1,124,000 clinician-provided abortions, and an increase of 21% from 2020, the last year of comprehensive national estimates before Dobbs. This count includes medication abortions provided via telemedicine by US clinicians, including those provided under the protection of shield laws to patients in states with total bans. It does not include self-managed abortions, such as those using medications mailed from pharmacies outside the United States or sourced from community networks.”
I am not sure if Guttmacher includes ending an ectopic pregnancy as an abortion in their statistics. I understand that in the United States, approximately 100,000 ectopic pregnancies occur each year.
We remain staunchly pro-life and urge others to be so also. It is unimaginable that in the U.S. we are allowing over 1 million babies each year to be killed. While it is certainly not the case with Cat, those that choose to abort a viable fetus are putting worldly interests above sacred human life.
Jim Cannon resides in Hutchinson and is a retired agricultural real estate appraiser and consultant.