SAN FRANCISCO — The University of California’s San Francisco campus has launched the nation’s first-ever online abortion class, creating both interest and outrage across the nation.

“Abortion: Quality Care and Public Health Implications” is a six-week free class being offered by the university through Coursera, and is to be taught by “over twenty faculty from various institutions and multiple disciplines [who] will place abortion within the context of public health and fill in the gaps left by its exclusion from mainstream curricula in health professions.”

“Each week’s lectures will incorporate the stories of women who seek abortion in order to better portray abortion significance and rationale,” the course description further outlines. “Other topics will include a brief history of abortion, the clinical aspects of medication and procedural abortions in and after the first trimester, an overview of patient-centered abortion-care, the basics of abortion counseling, the professional obligations of health care practitioners to ensure that women have access to safe abortion care, and the maze of restrictions that make safe abortion care inaccessible to many women.”

It also claims that abortion “has lower morbidity and mortality than childbirth” when performed in sanitary conditions, but that “nearly half of the abortions done in the world are unsafe, according to the WHO definition.”

According to reports, approximately 3,000 students have already registered to take the class.

“I think that if we can inspire even a small portion of the people who take the course to take steps in their communities to increase access to safe abortion and decrease stigma about abortion, then we have been totally successful,” instructor Dr. Jody Steinauer, associate professor of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive sciences at the university, told The Daily Beast. “[UCSF is] 100-percent supportive of the course and feels that it’s critical learning content for all medical students and nursing students.”

But Donna Harrison of the American Association of Pro-life Obstetricians and Gynecologists that most medical professionals refuse to perform abortions because they are opposed to the practice, not because of a lack of education on the subject.

“Any OBGYN knows how to empty a uterus at any stage,” she said. “It’s just that most OBGYNs recognize that there are two patients [mother and child].”

“As a 2012 graduate of University of California, San Diego, I cannot help but shudder at the thought of taxpayer dollars being funneled to an online course that aims to brainwash future UC graduates,” Town Hall’s Gabriella Hoffman also commented. “Fellow UC students will solely hear the pro-abortion side and be unaware of abortion’s implications for both unborn babies and pregnant women.”

As previously reported, the current standard surgical procedure for first trimester abortions in the United States is vacuum aspiration, a procedure where the unborn baby is forcefully sucked out of the uterus with a vacuum-like device. The abortionist then scrapes the walls of the uterus to ensure that none of the baby’s body parts, which are often ripped off during the procedure, remain in the mother.

For second and third trimester abortions, dilation and evacuation is the norm,a practice in which the baby’s heart is stopped, the mother’s cervix is dilated and the baby is then removed piece by piece. According to reports, the abortionist assembles the baby’s body parts on a tray to ensure that nothing is left behind.

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