The purpose of this Blog is to introduce men and women all over the World to the Doctrines of Grace; the 5 Solas; Reformation Theology and the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Friday, January 27, 2012

Comparing the Relative Safety of Abortion and Childbirth


Earlier this week a new study was released on abortion safety. The Reuters Health headline reads: "Abortion safer than giving birth." According to the study, one woman dies in childbirth for every 11,000 births in the United States, while one woman dies from abortion for every 167,000 abortions. These numbers led the researchers to declare that a woman is 14 times more likely to die giving birth than she is to die during an abortion. 

There are a number of ways to respond to a story like this. The first is to remind people that even if abortion is safer for the mother, it is certainly not safer for the child. Maternal, abortion-related deaths may be a rarity, but fetal, abortion-related deaths are not. We could just as easily say that for every 167,000 abortions in the United States, there are 167,001 abortion-related deaths. The headline of the MedicineNet article was a much more honest one: "Abortion Safer for Women Than Childbirth, Study Claims." 

The second thing to note is the sources of the datasets used in this study. While accurate birth data is available from the federal government, accurate abortion data is not. As such, abortion data must be obtained from the Guttmacher Institute, a research group founded by Planned Parenthood and named after their former president, Alan Guttmacher. The Guttmacher Institute openly advocates abortion and seeks to normalize its use around the world. 

Speaking to this issue, Dr. Donna Harrison, director of research and public policy at the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists, says, "Abortion mortality is not systematically collected. What Dr. Grimes' paper most clearly illustrates is the immediate need for reporting requirements for abortion deaths in all 50 states." Continue at Abort73

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