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Childbirth safer than abortion
24 February 2005
The 1967 Abortion Act (as amended in 1990) allows for abortion if: "... the continuance of the pregnancy would involve risk, greater than if the pregnancy were terminated, of injury to the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman or any existing children of her family." On this ground some 90% of all abortions in the UK occur.
It has long been the mantra of pro-abortionists that the risk of a woman dying from child birth was even up to 12 times that of the risk of dying from an abortion. Thus any woman requesting an abortion can obtain one in the UK, supposedly on medical grounds.
Pro-life advocates such as myself have claimed the reverse and cited the difficulty of getting accurate data. Unless a woman dies on the abortionist's operating table her death is normally not attributed to an abortion.
The ultimate measure of health can legitimately be found by looking at the death rate for women. There are obviously many health situations that do not lead to death. But if a particular group of women have a high mortality rate, then what has occurred to them is obviously unhealthy.
Now some very good research, of an impeccable nature, has come from Finland. The statistical analysis unit of Finland's National Research & Development Centre for Welfare & Health (STAKES) have evaluated the accuracy of maternal death reports. Researchers from STAKES obtained the death certificates of all women in Finland of reproductive age (15 to 49) who died between 1987 and 1994 - a total of 9,192 women. They then went through their health records to identify any pregnancy - related event for each woman in the 12 months prior to their deaths.
Finland has a very comprehensive health care system, abortions are all done in government hospitals and all health records are stored centrally. The STAKES researchers identified 281 women who had died within a year of their last pregnancy. They found that women who give birth were half as likely to die as women not pregnant in the previous 12 months. But women who abort were three and a half times more likely to die than the women giving birth. Statistically these figures are very significant.
Of the 281 women some 77 had committed suicide. Death by suicide for those giving birth was half that for the non pregnant. However those aborting were seven times more likely to die from suicide than those giving birth.
Death by accident was over four times higher for women who had aborted compared to those giving birth. In this study 57 women out of the 281 die from accidents. Women who have recently born children had half the risk of suffering a fatal accident compared to the general population. Women with newborns have a God given protective mechanism for caring for themselves and their offspring. Conversely abortion women are more prone to taking fatal risks.
Death by homicide occurred with 14 women of the 281. Women who abort were over four times more likely to be killed than the general population. Women with newborns were half as likely of being murdered as the general population. This again is related to the death by accident situation. Giving birth is a natural protective for women.
Following this research the South Glamorgan Health Authority, in Wales, examined their own data on admissions for suicide attempts both before and after pregnancy The South Glamorgan researches concluded that their data on increased suicide attempts for aborting women was not due to poor prior mental health but "the increased risk (eight times) of suicide after an induced abortion may therefore be a consequence of the procedure itself ".
Dr. Philip Ney (Canada) has done extensive study of women who have aborted. He concluded that "acute or pathological grief after the loss of an unborn child, whether by miscarriage or abortion, has a detrimental effect on the psychological and physical health of some women". He proposes several possible reasons for this:
- depression has been linked to suppressed immune responses
- psychological conflict consumes energy that would otherwise be spent in more healthy ways
- prolonged or unresolved mourning may distract the women from taking care of other health needs or confuse her interpretation of situations and events.
The above information was taken from Dr David Reardon's Abortion is four times deadlier than childbirth: new studies unmask high maternal death rates from abortion. The STAKES study on suicide is Suicides after pregnancy in Finland, 1987-94: register linkage study by Mika Gissler, Elina Hemminki and Jouko Lonnqvist (BMJ 1996;313:1431-1434 (7 December)).
If you would like more evidence of the adverse effect of abortion SPUC has published ...and still they weep which gives the testimonies of 20 women who have contacted British Victims of Abortion (BVA), our counselling group. There is also a video of the same name giving the testimonies of four women. This video has a study guide included. These items are in our online shop. If you know someone who has had an abortion and needs help, they can contact BVA.
