If Abortion is Safer Than Childbirth, Then Explain Chile
There’s been some flak in the news lately about new abortion counseling guidelines issued by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists.
LifeNews.com:
The guidelines, which have already been panned for ignoring the link between abortion and breast cancer, contain other scientific flaws.The guidelines say “Women should be advised that abortion is generally safer than continuing a pregnancy to term,” even though abortion comes with a host of medical and mental health concerns and has been found to cause more problems for women than childbirth.
Well, that’s the debate going on in Great Britain right now. The myth that childbirth has to be more dangerous than abortion seems to have been thoroughly dispelled in Chile at this point.
catholicnewsagency.com:
Chile, a country that does not allow abortion, recently received the International Protect Life Award for being the country with the lowest maternal mortality rate in Latin America.Nearly 30 representatives of pro-life organizations that work before the United Nations presented the award on Feb. 25 during the 2011 meeting of the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women. The meeting is taking place Feb. 22 – March 4 in New York.
A spokesman for the pro-life leaders, Dan Ziedler spoke with CNA on Feb. 25, saying, “It should be noted abortion is not allowed in Chile under any circumstances. Chile respects the life of both the mother and the child, the two are equal under the law.”
“I think we should praise this judicial system and acknowledge that the claim by many abortion supporters – that the practice must be legalized in order for maternal mortality to decrease – is not true,” Ziedler said.
The statistics do look rather convincing:
The numbers
A study by Dr. Elard Koch of the Department of Medicine at the University of Chile, which compared data on maternal deaths from abortion between 1957 and 2008, found that the rate had dropped 97.6 percent during the span of 51 years.
After therapeutic abortion was outlawed in 1989, the rate decreased from 13.62 to 1.65 percent for every 100,000 live births, that is, a drop of 87.9 percent.
Koch said the chances of maternal death from abortion for women today is 0.09 in 100,000.
These results, he explained, show that legislation that protects the life of the unborn does not lead to an increase in maternal mortality or illegal abortions. He added that legalizing or decriminalizing abortion leads to an “epidemic” with grave consequences for the health of women and for the country.
Koch, whose study was presented in January 2010 at the inaugural meeting of the International Working Group for Global Women’s Health Research, in Washington D.C., also said that what has led to a decrease in maternal mortality has been the promotion of “safe pregnancies,” not abortion.
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Let’s cut to the chase, when your research on the subject goes no further than two very biased sources and one known for not being truthful. Then we can say you are sadly misinformed.
Was unable to find the study on line (granted, only spent 20 min.). It only seems to be mentioned on Pro-life sites. But I have some questions of it’s methods.
The study population extends from 1957 and 2008. Since therapeutic abortions were outlawed in 1989, it presents another variable which, from this story, it does not seem to take into account. From one site I was able to find an abstract which showed a drop in MMR (maternal mortality ratio) of 44.1% compared to a drop in AMR (abortion mortality ratio) of 10.1% after abortion was outlawed. This would tend to go against the claims of the author (or at least the people posting this study). Why is the drop in mortality 4 times higher in the overall maternal group than in the abortion group once abortion was made illegal. The overall analysis (for the entire period) shows a fairly equal drop in both mentalities. It would seem, that once abortions were made illegal, more women were dying from abortions than overall mortality.
The improvements in prenatal care and better obstetric services could be the reasons for the overall drop in maternal mortality. But, without more of the specifics, it seems premature to “claim” that this study somehow shows that childbirth is safer than abortion (or vice versa).
@Bob Barnes
Maybe you should also tell it to the International Protect Life Committee of the United Nations, Bob. They’re the ones who felt Chile was deserving of this recognition. The United Nations is not exactly a hotbed of Pro-Life activism either. (Usually quite the opposite.)
So, what again was the evidence you had that refutes the Chilean government’s own statistics cited in the Catholic News agency’s article?
Hmm. I’m trying to figure out why the Abortion Mortality Ratio would drop at all after abortion was outlawed if legalizing abortion makes it so much safer.
Yes. The last line in the Catholic News Agency article:
@Leland
“Hmm. I’m trying to figure out why the Abortion Mortality Ratio would drop at all after abortion was outlawed if legalizing abortion makes it so much safer.”
Because you would still have qualified, trained people who would buck such a restrictive, religious zealot law and continue to help women. But there is a difference in mortality, one that is not accounted for by this author.
But when the only option becomes those ‘back-alley abortionists’, isn’t that when the number of women who are killed and maimed by abortion would inevitably skyrocket, according to you pro-aborts?
Could that be part of the “difference in mortality” you are having trouble accounting for? Of course the Maternal Mortality Ratio would drop significantly if a concerted effort is made toward “the promotion of safe pregnancies”, as was done in Chile.
But if those ‘back-alley’ abortions aren’t actually much less safe than the supposedly ‘safe and legal’ kind were all along anyway – and you suggest that they would not be, when you assert that “…you would still have qualified, trained people who would buck such a restrictive, religious zealot law and continue to ‘help’ women…” – then why would one expect the Abortion Mortality Ratio to change much in either direction when abortion is outlawed?
@Leland
“But when the only option becomes those ‘back-alley abortionists’, isn’t that when the number of women who are killed and maimed by abortion would inevitably skyrocket, according to you pro-aborts?”
Nothing changes overnight. Having done studies involving births with changing abortion laws, one has to account for the change and realize that data does not change overnight.
You are claiming that this study somehow proves that childbirth is safer than abortion. Noone can come away with that conclusion, at least not from what little information has been provided. You also claim that abortion mortality still went down after it was made illegal and did not “skyrocket” when it was illegal. I was attempted to come up with some explanation, again, without a lot of information. It is possible that some of the medical professionals who provided legal abortion in the past would still provide it illegally in order to help women. Some would not which could account for the slower drop in mortality (i.e. more women are now dying that abortion is illegal). Give it another 10-15 years and I think it would be reasonable to assume that the mortality rate of abortion would either level off or go up.
But, why do you think more women died once abortion became illegal because that IS what the data shows?